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Would You Rent a Song For a Dime?
An anonymous reader writes "What's worse than a padlocking every song so that they will only play on certain devices? How about selling (renting) you songs that work on no devices? Astonishingly, this is what the music industry thinks we need. Warner Music is spending $20 million to back Lala, a startup devising a service to convince people to 'buy' 'web songs' for 10 cents each; these are then kept for safekeeping only by Lala with no download privileges. Industry insider Michael Robertson leaks the facts on this scheme, along with a seekrit URL so you can try it out."
I would rent a song for a dime if you would lick my balls for a quarter.
So now we're meant to pay ten cents for the right to imagine we have imaginary property?
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
If you can listen, you can save, and it won't be long before a hack for that is posted on slashdot.
Music Search: nerdcore
Sorry, no matches for you.
Sorry, no business for you.
If it can be played through your speakers, then it can be used as a cheap venue for Piracy. All they are really doing is making it cheaper for pirates to initially grab your .mp3's for distribution.
09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0
They are only "locked" if people don't record the analog output from the computer.
How many people really want music that can only be played from the internet? For some people this would work, sure.
Apparently they don't think many people like iPods and other portable music players.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
So they're letting you listen to a digital copy one time? Time to start firing up the flash ripper and start scraping the site. Chances are they're not sticking stupid DRM or watermarking in their own 'secure' player.
Granted having your entire music collection in fla is annoying, you can probably can convert it to something a little more usable.
Sounds like a great source for large volumes of music.
The website clearly says "Get MP3s for your iPod". Is the submission incorrect, or is there a catch to said MP3s? Because the submission clearly states that anything from Lala won't play on any devices. That was the whole point of posting this here for people to be outraged, I imagine.
The twitter monologues. Click on my homepage and be amazed.
Of course the music industry would support this, they can make millions of dollers this way.
-- (this is a sig) My Computer Programming Forumhttp://www.programers.co.nr/
I don't hate the idea... so long it isn't the only way to obtain music. Sometimes I get a song stuck in my head and I only want to hear it once or twice, then forget about it for another few years. That's worth the $0.20 so that I don't have to hunt for a torrent or other file sharing media... and wait. But make no mistake; This is no alternative for being able to purchase a whole, unencumbered album that I can listen to indefinitely.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/26/153222 "if you can watch it and you can hear it, you can copy it." nice try folks, nice try.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
I wouldn't rest a song for any amount of money
Every conceivable permutation of DRM restrictions has to be tried and failed until the barely-chordates in the music industry will realize it's a terminally flawed business model.
I imagine the schemes will become more and more elaborate, more and more draconian, and more and more amusing for those of us who've had a new thought since the compact disc was invented.
I'm very happy with mindawn.com and emusic.com, and physical CD purchases for those other things I "just gotta have". Everyone else can take a flying leap.
I will just sit back and enjoy watching the churn.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Click here
Unlimited free music with links to purchase it if you want. 100% legal. 100% major labels. Tons of obscure stuff too.
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
Ok, so, I don't like this idea, as many people here will agree- it's just another sign that the labels are out of touch with reality.
That being said- I would like to point out that it's already a losing model with something like Rhapsody in existance, which, btw, I absolutely could not live without! (Thanks to my new Squeezebox Duet, per recommendation of the slashdot crowd. thanks guys!)
Anyway, my point is this: They're late to catch on. Nobody will pay 10 cents to listen to a computer. Listening on the comp should be free, people want to and will pay to take it with them. That being said, 89 cent mp3s are a good idea, this might gain ground.
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
It's not that people won't pay for music, most people would happily pay for high quality DRM free music, but they don't want to offer that. They'd rather come up with stupid schemes like this. This crap isn't worth a dime when I can get the same songs for free in a much more friendly format.
Won't be the first time that TimeWarner lost big money on pipe dreams.
I thought I had heard of Lala before.
Sure enough, Lala started as a physical CD trading website. I remember reading about this and wondered what I was missing about their business model.
Judging from this, I don't think they knew either.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
NO!
The site says that you can also get mp3 (yes, mp3) for presumably a higher price. So, this is more of a rental model, listen to the *locked* version for a dime or own the song for a higher price.
They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me. -Nathaniel Lee
And paying for is to buy.
No Warner below us,
Above us, metro wi-fi
Imagine all the artists
Getting paid the full amount.
Imagine there's no IP
Nor music tax for you
Nothng to lawsuit over
And no Sony too
Imagine all the people
Owning what they have
You may say I'm unAmerican .torrent
And your lawyer's just begun
I hope someday you'll
And the world will be as one.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
American's like to own and collect stuff. That's why houses, TVs, and MP3 storage capacity keep getting larger and larger. If I simply rent songs, what is the point of buying a 500GB video IPod or having the 5 Terabytes in my MythTV media center? The only way I see this plan working is if I rent it 10 times, that entitles me to own it. 10 rents = 1 purchase and you have to give me 1 penny back to be the same price as ITunes. Got it looosers?
I'm not about to get one. How do you expect me to pay this "dime"? Screw that. Too much good stuff out there without such nonsense. They should be paying me to distribute their content. Electricity ain't free, ya know.
What?
My major objection to DRM on music I buy is simple: if there is DRM on it, I don't really own it.
If I am renting the music in the first place, DRM doesn't bother me so much. Exhibit A is the Rhapsody online music service, which is essentially a flat-rate music rental service. I have discovered that I like Rhapsody very much. I am finding new bands that I like, bands I had never heard of before, much faster than before I had Rhapsody.
Depending on what you get, Rhapsody is $12 to $15 per month. If this plan really is a dime per track, that's a cheaper rental than Rhapsody. The big question is coverage. If the new plan only lets me rent the latest pop acts, I'm just not interested. (Rhapsody has over 4 million tracks, including all sorts of cool things: Herbie Mann flute albums, Bill Cosby comedy albums, progressive rock, etc.)
When Rhapsody helps me music I really like, I then go and buy the music on CD, so that I will really own it. I'd be happy to do the same thing with this new service.
Will the service succeed? I'd say that depends very much on the specifics. How do you pay them that dime per track? If they have a convenient way to add dimes to your account, such as selling gift cards in Best Buy, it might become wildly popular; if you have to jump through a bunch of hoops (agree to a 20-page EULA, pre-register, enter a valid credit card number, pre-pay in $30 chunks, etc.) most people will just say no.
Assuming it's convenient, would I "rent" a song for ten cents? Sure. Why not?
steveha
Disclaimer: I work for the company that owns Rhapsody, but it's not my job to sell it to you or anyone else.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Somebody will make a downloader like Free Music Zilla (which does IMEEM and Pandora, among others), which will mean $2 albums. I'm not complaining!
You can buy DRM-free MP3s for your iPod or other portable device for just 79Â more. That's 89Â, which is cheaper than iTunes DRM-Free music.
But they have Men without Pants
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Hey, give them some credit - at least they've figured out the right price point. Now they just have to fix the distribution model (i.e. no rental - you own the song and can listen when and where you want).
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
Meanwhile, as this swirls the drain, people will still continue to pirate music. That's right, spend your billions on failures.
No sig for you!!
This is stupid. Why would I need this when I can just bring my iPod to work? Or, fire up iTunes when I'm at home.
We so need to organize a protest at this one diner near where I work. They have the audacity to "rent" songs for a whole quarter a song (or 5 for $1), for just one listen! If I'm paying for it, I want the right to my song, dammit!
Look, I'm all for actually owning the digital music you buy, but I think we're jumping on this for the wrong reason. It's not so much that they are ripping us off of our rights (which they aren't), as it is a stupid business model. There are so many other, better legal alternatives out there, I don't see this one flying.
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If the concept is that you can listen as often as you want online, but can never download the song to anything in any format, then I think it's priced right and is a good product. My reasoning? This is essentially how I value *all* DRM-protected content. In fact it's better in some ways because they obviously have to try to keep the music available and I don't have to worry about backups or proof of ownership. $0.10 is seriously cheap. I could replicate most of my library for $100 and be able to listen to it forever anytime I was online. As "online" becomes more and more pervasive, it would suffice for more and more of my listening time. Compared to $100 to replicate my library by most other offerings, that's a good deal.
"Lala is an online music service where you can listen, upload, trade, and buy music. Unforuntely[sic] it requires javascript, similar to most major websites on the internet."
Whew, rather defensive there...
No you aren't. Just keep your dime.
The service is only for people who want to pay the dime.
For people who have nothing to offer but complaints and an unearned sense of entitlement, there is no service.
http://next.lala.com/
It actually has a nice Web 2.0 interface and is currently playing FREE music if you want to try it. However it doesn't have my favorite Yngwie Malmsteen CD, but has a good selection. Oh, and if you don't know who Yngwie Malmsteen is, then go listen for free right now.
I wish I had mod points for you two. For $0.10 apiece you can pretend I modded you up.
They must be nuts.
Even if i were to rent music, which i refuse to, when would i ever be able to listen to it? The only free time i have now for music is during my daily commute. No ipod, no listen..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I think other reviewers pretty much hit the nail on the head when they say that price is not really the issue. That said, I don't really like the idea of having to use a client to access the music off of a site. For one, you're dependant on the reliability of the media server. For another, you are banking on the fact that the client won't create a root kit for an intruder to gain access to your machine. Obviously, making a tcp or udp connection to the media server pokes all kinds of holes in a firewall. So, I Warner can keep its 10 cent music. It would cost me way more than 10 cents to fix a computer that has been rooted and assimilated into a bot net.
If these clown record labels spent 1% of the money they insist on wasting fighting their customers and the free promotion and distribution we do for them instead on paying good bands for some of the good new music that kids are always coming up with to amuse their friends, there'd be lots more sales of T-shirts, concert tickets, special "Premiere Day Downloads", licensing to commercials and movies, and all kinds of other ways to milk people's love of good music.
Instead they spend all the money they rip from us for $1 songs and $15 CDs and $20 DVDs on more idiots trying to stop us from listening to music. But then I guess all their "decision makers" wouldn't get paid.
--
make install -not war
"Lala is an online music service where you can listen, upload, trade, and buy music. Unforuntely it requires javascript, similar to most major websites on the internet."
Anybody interested in finding out how to get those tracks for free? Turns out these are mp3s, downloaded normally over http. The url something like
:-D
http://cfs-listen-80.lala.com/contentfs/content?t=long-list-of-random-chars
Unfortunately, the song seems to not getting stored anywhere on the local hard disk. And when one tries to start downloading the url a second time, a "not found" message is given. Anybody interested of analyzing it some more?
Hard to find a jukebox these days that charges less than 25 cents a play.
Yeah, I know it's not the same, I'm just saying that the idea of charging per play is hardly a new, untested, unworkable one.
Buy a 7-dollar cable from Radio Shack and route the Headphone Jack directly into the Microphone jack on your computer (or use 2 computers - how many Slashdot readers really only have one computer?) and then use a free program like Audacity to record it and make an instant, non-DRMed MP3, OGG, etc. 10 cents is not a bad price.
Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. But light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Sounds like a bargain to me - and a way to vote with your dollars. Wins all around.
My iTunes library has 968 songs that have been played more than 0 times (meaning played at all). The total song plays (start to finish) is 2233. $223.30 is a heck of a lot cheaper than $968, and that's playing some of the songs more than 15 times (a few over 20 times).
The more a song gets played the more the artist makes? They make songs people want to listen to more? There are more songs I enjoy listening to? Who's losing here? People who make crappy music and people who sell crappy music? How is this bad?
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Would you rent a dime for a song? -- Hmmm I didn't think so.
10 cents is actually my price point for music; when iTunes started selling it for a buck I poo-pooed it and said I'd wait for 10 cents. If it actually happens, I'll start buying music again. If it weren't for the record labels, and independent bands were allowed to sell their own music, even a mediocre band should be able to survive on the income and a great band should make oodles and oodles of cash.
But it'd have to be BUYING the music, not renting. I want a high quality VBR MP3 or AAC file, at the minimum.
I don't get it... it says you can listen to a song for free once, and then you have to pay. How do they know I've listened to it before? I can delete cookies, and I can sign up multiple times if I have to. Unless they require some kind of verifiable identification to prove you're a new user (which I do not intend to provide), I can listen to as much music as I like for free. Sounds like a great site to me!
I'd gladly give the artist 10 cents, but the recording execs won't get one penny out of me and mine.
Heck, most of my CDs I've bought from the artists themselves, knowing they tend to get HALF the money I give them, as opposed to buying through a label that gives them less than 2 cents for a CD.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
So that's the reason... that bitch!
Is rule number two that the mod point fairy only gives you mod points when you completely disagree with what someone has said but can't express your thoughts into a coherent or humorous paragraph?
I can listen but I can't download... sound like last.fm or pandora to anyone else? But those are FREE, so why the hell am I expected to pay for a song I can't own?
Honestly, any music one buys online is going to have a limited lifetime. The best one can hope for is that you can make a copy to CD and not lose much in the transcoding. But how many people burn to CD? For most people the just put on their computer or another device.
While I think this service is maybe inferior to something like Amazon, it is superior in many ways to ITMS. If I can pay a dime to put something in a jukebox, then play it from anywhere I can log on, what is the problem? I might make even more sense to use this service that labouriously moving all my music from on device to another.
That is if I hadn't already bought half of the music I will likely buy in my lifetime. I have many gigabytes of music that I have bought over my life. If I was a kid with a computer, a smart phone, and internet access at school, this would be a wonderful deal. An album for a dollar. I can play on anything I normally play on? Sign me up! You may think of the expense, but how much are kids paying for ringtones, SMS, and the like.
I know we have a kneejerk reaction around here to paying for things, and we believe that music wants to be free, but perhaps the objection here is more based on what we consider the norm, not rational thought. Perhaps music is not about listening to the same album a hundred times because we can only afford that one album, or listening to whatever is free on yahoo. Perhaps there is some value in having a collection of songs, that one chooses our of personal taste, and then having access to those songs over many devices located in disparate geographical area. As I said, i would not do this. I would just buy the CD or download the album. But I can imagine such a thing maybe finding a small market. It would suck to have all the music go away, though.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Presumably it's locked to an account. In theory you could set up infinite accounts, but in practice a few people will set up a few accounts to get a few extra free plays, while the vast majority (assuming that the userbase becomes vast) will listen and either pay or not pay. That's not the problem.
What I think is the hole in the scheme is that, if you can play it once, you can record it. You could even bot that so that over a period equal to the cumulative length of their catalog, you could download their entire catalog for free. The only way to prevent this is to degrade the quality of the free playback to uselessness, which would tend to undercut the entire scheme.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
One Question for Miss Morissette: Slashdotting a music service that is essentially nothing but a denial of service (a.k.a. sham), which effectively puts it out of service for a while, is that
a.) ironic, or
b.) a self-fulfilling prophesy?
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
Yes, but there are other sites that let you do that without the hassles. Last.Fm, Pandora, even YouTube let you do the same thing without all the proprietary nonsense and in the case of YouTube there is probably one of the largest selection of music on the web on that site. If you want to rip music you can either use Audacity or download YouTube videos in FLV format and then convert them. So it is similar to Last.FM, Pandora and YouTube but has more hassles? No thanks.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Hmmm... This sounds a lot like songza.com except you have to pay for it. Can you say "RIP-OFF"?
One good thing that it appears they have going for them is that they are up-front about the rental aspect of it.
So what's to keep me from making an analog copy of the song when I play it back? I'm assuming that you'd get at least MP3 quality, if not AAC quality from this so-called "rental", and any WAV-quality recording I make at the baseband analog level is going to be at least as good as any MP3, perhaps better (no loss of highs or lows). Then all I have to do is compress it in whatever format I want and upload it to whatever devices I want to. So, this is another stupid, pointless idea that won't solve any of their so-called problems with piracy, now will it? What a bunch of dumbasses..
This was posted by kdawson. If that doesn't mean anything to you, pay attention the next time there is a _wildly_ inaccurate summary (this is /. so expect some false positives). Odds are it's our good friend kdawson again.
From the site:
You can buy DRM-free MP3s for your iPod or other portable device for just 79 more
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Using DownloadHelper, downloaded lala tunes seem to be 64kbps mp3's. No bargain.
Their locker is a poor copy of MP3tunes which has a real locker with the rights to download all of YOUR music. It has an API so other devices can sync and stream your music. My questions are:
How can a web service in 2008 *not* have an API and be taken seriously?
When will the labels realize that you can't give PAYING customers less than they get from files on P2P sites?
How can the labels think that DRM for music is not completely DEAD? Newsflash - ALL music is available for free on P2P in MP3 format or for sale at Amazon.
One could consider the name "Lala" a infringing on some copyrights, and the desgin of the site is an EXACT copy of last.fm... lawsuit?
I guess the traditional recording industry won't stop until they are fully out of business. That's coming soon (tm).
I can't believe these dinosaurs still run the business. Why should anyone of us that grew up with digital copies pay for such an incoherent and utterly useless attempt to lock us into a cage again? Screw that, I say keep pirating until all the major labels are dead, every last movie studio shut down and all A&Rs out of a job. Then we can start over and do things properly for a change.
I would not pay a penny for there crappy service. I hope it flops and ur 20mill goes down the drain.... How about instead of blowing ur wads of cash on drm n useless crap u pay your damn artists!
No.
20th century Marxism is not progress...
i don't have any mod points this week otherwise I would...well in...seems like /. has had so many posts about the music industry bending over backwards to do anything but the right thing, it's almost like there's nothing more to say.
;)
apropo of nothing...Sometimes I hate iTunes, other times I love it. The reasons to hate it are obvious, but I always remember what digital music was like before iTunes. Haphazard at best. Labels wouldn't even consider selling songs online, and the quality of what was available through p2p's was suspect at best. Since we have MyTunes, i think the net effect of iTunes has been positive. I still use my dbpoweramp to rip cd's though
Thank you Dave Raggett
I for one still prefer to buy my music on CDs. If only they could lower the price for CDs... Now, I stopped buying CDs unless it is something I really need to have. Radio is good enough. Same goes for movies. The only ones I buy are on the discount rack at Target/Walmart. Nope, I don't own an HD player. Probably never will.
The part about safekeeping in the summary threw me for a loop. I thought finally, that if you cannot back up your own music(as the Labels have said), you could pay someone to do it for you. Then it turns out it's something entirely different, a web2.0 of music. As for the question: "Would I rent a song for.." My answer is no, I pay for it, it's mine. Forever. The per song model works for radio because it's a broadcast, I'm not paying so I can broadcast a tune to my ears, and someone else gets paid, and the more I like a song, the more I pay.
It may seem like a waste now to buy music online but think about where the music industry is probably going. Right now the music is useless except at home. But I'm betting in the next few years things like this are going to become more popular, and more accessible on standard mp3 players. It's better than DRM because you can't lose the songs. So once ipods can access this, it sounds like a pretty fair deal to have ten cents a song for music you don't even have to store or worry about losing. Look ahead into the future. When we can access this wherever, it'll be a cheap, quick, storable way to use music.
A quick look at the rankings...
Hell yeah! I LOVE Various Artists!
Don't care much for the idea but a neat site. I wouldn't mind having such an interface to my MP3 library at home.
Renting a Lala track: $0.10.
Wireshark + Lala's policy of allowing a single play per track: Priceless.
Some things on the net are easy to wget,
For everything else there's Wireshark.
I can't remember the last time I forgot anything.
It says right on the site that the downloads are DRM free and cost $0.79. That is less that iTunes.
It also seems that you can upload your own CD's and add them to you collection. Perhaps in the future this could lead to being able to stream music to my handheld.
Surprise surprise, it was posted by kdawson. Why even have an "editor" if he doesn't even bother to check if the summary is correct?
Of course you can save anything that is seen or hear on your computer. All that stuff is flash based. It all gets saved in your temp folder in Windows at least.
I use a program called "ViceVersa Pro" basically because the files deletes as soon as you are doon with it and Windows won't let you make a copy of it while it's in use. ViceVersa enables a "Windows" feature called "Shadow Copy" that lets you copy any files that is in use.
Once you copy the flash file you just use FLVExtract and it gives you the MP3 or AVI from the temp file. Real easy and is great for Imeem.com
Of course I just use this as an alternitive to ripping my own already purchased CDs as to save the motor life of my CD-ROM drive.
Which is why every single DRM system anyone ever devises, will instantly be defeated. If you can listen to it, you can record it, yeah? The problem with Wireshark (though, apparently, not in this particular case) is that if the stream is encrypted, wireshark is just grabbing cyphertext. But, at some point, to listen to it, they MUST decrypt the stream, and once it's decrypted you could potentially capture it in hardware, or more simply, by recording the output of the sound card.
Well, can you?
However, it's still fun to abuse them for any reason. Someone needs to introduce WMG to a Cluebat.
Posting anonymously so that I can tell you a story:
I work for a company who's had dealings with WMG. Not only have they screwed us over at least once, but we actually presented them with an online music distribution model that would work.
Oh, and we wouldn't have needed $20 million to pull it off.
What's even more pathetic is that we actually fell for some of their criticism of our model. They said "Can you use it on an airplane?" We said "Wireless Internet is coming to airplanes. And subways." They said "Ok, can you use it camping?" *facepalm*
Toss in a good dose of corporate politics, especially given how much money they're losing lately, and you end up with... I'd love to say more, because you can't make this shit up, but I'm trying to keep this anonymous, for obvious reasons.
So no, my outrage isn't about my rights, as unlike some other things (Napster, Rhapsody), I doubt many users will be fooled into thinking this is more than it is. My outrage is the sheer stupidity of the business model. I find it hard to imagine a faster way for WMG to self-destruct.
It won't be any more legal to rent a song for 10 cents and save it than it is to just torrent the whole album in Flac format. And the latter is going to be higher quality, anyway.
Please, no one waste your time on this. Don't make this service appear any more valuable than it is.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
You only need some sort of effective micro-payment strategy to make this work. A dime might be bit much though: 2c would work.
Personally I think a micropayment system could be very useful for all sorts of purposes and could make an effective revenue stream for Open Souce software etc. I'm not going to pay a once-off hit of $100 for using Fire Fox or OpenOffice, but I'd happily (voluntarily) pay 5c or 10c per day that I use these.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Well if it's a Christmas song then MAYBE I would rent it for 10 cents. It depends on what it is. If it's Jewel - O Little Town of Bethlehem then why not! :)
Listening to a song by Ludacris - 10 cents on mastercard,
Listening to Away in a Manger -- Priceless!!
Carrie -The Christmas Angel
There's already a free version of this called iMeem.
Move all sig!
Funny that, I can use google search, slashdot, amazon, ebay, bbc news, my online bank and most other major sites just fine without. I do agree it's unfortunate; perhaps they should hire a development team that knows what they're doing?
I don't think lala has much of a chance to become successful, but who knows, maybe. But, if it did become popular, the price of a song wouldn't remain a dime. I remember people plunking 25c into jukeboxes in the 80's to play a song ONCE. Given inflation, that's like 65c today (according to the U.S. Dept. of Labor). I've never heard of an industry that willingly reduced prices. Forces have forced them to, for now, but you can bet they are trying to figure out how to get song prices back up to where you pay 75c to just listen to a song once, and 3-5 bucks to buy a perpetual (non-transferable, if they can help it) license.
Honestly, I'm happy with a buck a song. When you consider the jukebox, you are getting to keep the song for the price of 4 plays at 1980-prices. I think Lala is a stupid idea, but I love Amazon MP3s, Walmart MP3s, and iTunes+ (that is, the unencrypted songs). The only problem I have with Amazon, Walmart, and iTunes is that it's hard to actually find new music, because you only get to hear like 15 seconds of a song. It's awefully hard to tell if you actually like a song in 15 seconds. Sometimes it's hard to tell even if you are getting the recording you've heard before and like, or some funky recording that just doesn't sound right.
Something like Lala might be a good way to find music that you intend on purchasing higher-quality tracks from other stores, but gives you a cheap way to hear new music. Still, for that, there's plenty of Internet radio, and places like last.fm.
$.10 rents you the song forever. It is NOT per use. It may not be for everyone, but at least we have a choice besides $.99. :lou
me of...
"A PENNY for your THOUGHTS,
a NICKLE for a KISS...
a DIIIIMME if you tell me that you *UCK me"...
(* two letters can be used in place of '*')
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I've solved the great unsolved term.
1. Create an infeasible idea to solve a problem to which a solution simply is not defined.
2. ???
3. Profit
Step 2, of course... "Dupe a record label into giving you 20 million dollars"
Fortunately, I am a thinker, and I would like to announce my own method for music distribution. You pay me one dollar, and one of our skilled ListenTechs will listen to the song FOR you, and TELL you what it sounds like! This customized SongReport will be sent to you - electronically - for you to use and enjoy... the way the artists intended.
Best yet, you can play our files ANYWHERE, ANYTIME. No DRM!
{folds arms and waits for money to pour in}
I hope this makes it to the top.
Most of the information here is just plain wrong, I think Robertson is afraid of something. If you mostly listen online then instead of buying a song for 99 cents you can get it for 10 cents. If you really want to buy it you have to pay 79 cents more for a high quality DRM free MP3 copy.
So please, why is this so bad?
From the how it works page:
What does adding a web song to my collection mean?
When you add a web song to your collection, you're able to listen to it as many times as you'd like, from any computer. You can also create playlists with web songs.
How much does adding cost?
It costs 10 cents to add a web song to your collection. Plus, the first 50 web songs you add to your collection are free, so give it a try!
If you later decide that you also want to get the MP3, the 10 cents you paid for the web song will be applied towards that purchase.
What is the bitrate of a web song that I add to my collection?
We strive to maintain a streaming bitrate standard of 128 kbps for web songs added to your collection. As determined by the labels, some web songs you add to your collection may stream at a bitrate of 64 kbps. Songs that you upload will generally stream at the bitrate at which they were ripped.
How do I listen to the web songs I've added to my collection on a portable device?
To listen to web songs you've added to your collection on an iPod or other portable device, you can download the MP3 file for an additional charge. The 10 cents you've already invested toward this purchase will be deducted from the final MP3 price.
I wouldn't rent a song for a dime. But I might be willing to permanently own every song an artist has ever written for free. With limewire and torrents, who pays for digital information?
But they can rent my dime for a song.
-Magnus
Seems like the Music / Movie industry just can't do enough to motivate people to use torrents or other illegal means to secure their Music / Movies..!!!
On their "How It Works" page, they do mention that they offer DRM-free MP3s "for your iPod or other portable device" for $0.89. (Well, "79Â more"...)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
I'd pay a monthly fee to listen to a large library of music on demand, but a dime to add a song to a play list? n-word please.
Wait, what?
... just like some people pay $100 a week for the right to imagine they own a house. Yeah, that's it. They just want to imagine they own it, and being able to have comfort and shelter are just side-effects.
I swear intellectual property is subjected to the biggest double standards here at Slashdot since Microsoft.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
From the TOS: "la la reserves the right to terminate or suspend your access to the Services or Site, with or without cause, at any time and effective immediately."
In other words they can take back what you thought you paid for anytime, and they won't return your dime.
Sadly, I imagine this service will be far more successful than it deserves.
Amazingly, the $20 million could be used to offset the imaginary pirating of music that happens, and setting up a method where we can purchase high quality MP3s instead.
:)
Amazon has the right idea. I won't ever use iTunes due to DRM and lock-in, but I love Amazon's music service. And to those Ogg lovers... sorry, but just because we are nerds, doesn't mean everybody is
Everybody has an iPod.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
I know we all hate anything and everything but this doesn't seem so bad. It's damn fast. I'd wager it's just as fast as playing songs in Winamp and that's impressive. Granted it's still in beta and all but it's also on the front page of /. so who knows what it will be like six months from now.
That said, I think it's a good thing. The only question in my mind is how long until you can rip the audio as it streams? You can play each song once for free it says, and that's all it takes to make a copy. You can rip audio from Pandora but with that you can't pick the song or when it will play so this might be even better than that. Then again, lots of people I know think 128k is shite. That's what all of my music is at so it would be fine for me.
Now if only they would do the $20 per month for unlimited listening... that would be pretty sweet.
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
During the 80's and early 90's I was good for 100.oo bucks a week (US) in music. Had a huge library before the fire. Then the RIAA came along and said I was a crook for buying all that music from them. Now if it isn't on the radio I don't hear it. Sorry RIAA. (OK I've bought 2 albums one from NIN and one from RadioHead. Online Legit and yes I did pay for both of them.)
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
I gave up the BigLabels(tm) for indie artists over a year ago and have never regretted that decision. I treat my music the same way I treat my O/S now. I use the good stuff (Linux and indie music) when it's my time and money. I use the commercial steaming piles of crap (Windows, RIAA company music) when somebody else pays me (very) well to use it. So far, I've only found morons who will pay me to support shit software. I'm still looking for suckers to pay me to listen to shit music from shit music companies.
Over in the "center of wiki?" I saw that. There may be something to your theory after all.
I don't think Michael Robertson has a shred of legitimacy.
First, I KEEP trying to get off his spam list for Michael's Minutes, and Linspire. Do they ever remove my name? NOOO
What can I do to get these unrepentant spammers off my back? Does anyone have any ideas?
(second, he sold out to MS, a whole other problem)
i call bullshit!
its called `analog hole`, people - look it up.
if i can hear it - i can record it.
You guys whine and rant like infants about DRM and continue to steal and share music. What do you think the music industry is going to do? Give up jobs and profit? The worst part about this is that DRM protected music isnt locked to one device any different than a LP, CD or Cassette. I play FairPlay on 5 computers, several iPods and stream it. I even play it on CD players. Either you are ignorant or stupid.
What you really want to do is play the same copy concurrently on several devices. And you don't even realize it. Nor do you realize that that is piracy no matter how you slice it. Again, no different than LPs, CDs, and Cassettes.
Someday you will have to accept that you are not buying the music, you are buying the media it comes on. You never own the song. And you have always had limited usage rights.
Considering the amount of music we listen to via music sites like Yahoo, Pandora, Live365, etc this is actually a sophisticated move by Warner. They are finally catching up to the current technology uses of the listeners. Access to you whole music collection via any internet connection without piracy is innovation.
All by itself, this is stupid. But combine this with wifi media players and real municipal wifi, and it becomes more reasonable.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
People try this trick all the time, trying to get something for free. Put a stop to it.
Tell them up front that you work with code for a living and you don't work for free. Then give them a hefty hourly rate. And tell them you don't work partial hours. A five minute call gets billed for the full hour.
One of two things will happen.
1) They'll pull their heads out of their asses, learn to solve their own problems and stop bugging you.
2) You'll have extra beer money.
Win-win.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Why doesn't everybody just share the same account?
Lala is an online music service where you can listen, upload, trade, and buy music. Unforuntely it requires javascript, similar to most major websites on the internet.
I block scripts.. "Unforuntely " that makes me see why I'll run screaming from the site...
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Seriously, why would I pay even 10 cents to listen to a song online when practically every song in existence now has a free YouTube music video that you can to listen to?
.MP3 or .AAC file sounds like crap on my laptop's speakers.
Sure, the sound quality isn't all that great, but even the best quality
Rhapsody: Last I checked was something like $13/month for access to unlimited songs but they all go away as soon as you stop paying.
At $0.10 each, this service gets you 130 new songs to add to your playlist, that then never go away, each month, for the same price.
If you're the kind of person who only ever listens to a core group of maybe five hundred songs plus a couple of new albums worth a month, you're looking at the equivalent of four months of Rhapsody subscriptions and then only a few bucks a month. Plus, when you stop, it doesn't go away.
For the cost of three years of Rhapsody subscription, you're now looking at being able to build a four and a half thousand song library that you technically* (assuming they don't switch the service off and tell you you're S.O.L.) keep forever.
In the scheme of things, if you're happy only listening to music on your computer, it's a better deal for a certain group of people than Rhapsody is. Rhapsody lets you get access to a broader library for one monthly price, it lets you stop paying without losing service on an initially more limited list.
Sure, you can just go download it all for free. If that's your thing, no fee paying option will ever appeal to you. If it's not... I don't know, you're say a programmer who makes imaginary property and likes getting paid for it so empathize with musicians that do the same... the more different pricing structures, that let you pick the one that suits your buying tastes, the better.
Hideho, IP seller from the Internet here. I sell five figures a year worth of software at $25 a pop (http://www.bingocardcreator.com). Doing that requires getting between 100,000 and 200,000 visitors to my site over the course of a year. I'm going to work out the mediocre band math for you:
Desired income per band member: $20,000 (starving artistry rocks!)
Band members: 4
Required income for band: $80k
Expenses (band promotional/community website, equipment, etc): $20k
Split with service: 50-50 (and that is HIDEOUSLY generous -- they probably get closer to 10%, whereas software sellers get 96% because they are not forced to use a go-between and can process credit cards efficiently at our price point)
Required sales for band: $200k
Number of sales required: 2 million
Ludicrously high estimated conversion rate: 10%
Required visitors per year: TWENTY MILLION
So no problem, mediocre band, all you have to do is reach an audience about ten times the size of St. Louis every year and you, too, can experience the joys and oppulence of a $20k a year music making lifestyle. That is assuming you are given ludicrously generous terms by the service (you won't be) and have an astoundingly high conversion rate (you won't).
Want to see the math for "oodles and oodles of cash" at the 10 cent pricepoint? Here it is: step #1, be the guy that collects 80% of the sales from tens of thousands of bands making no significant money each. There is no step #2. The guy who wins big on the long tail is the aggregator. (Same in my business, incidentally. Of the $2,000 I sold last month, Google got about $600. Not a bad deal for them, since that $600 of revenue required no marginal work on their part -- they have me working harder every month to make them *more* money!)
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
This isn't bad - rent the song for a dime and play it wherever you have a net connection (pretty much anywhere these days with EVDO and 3G.) If you want to "buy" the song it's still cheaper than iTunes and it comes in a standard MP3 format. I don't see why the poster's panties are in such a bunch.
Oh - and free full length previews of entire albums. I haven't heard the Pixies in years....
I think you're making a poor assumption, that music is going to be marketed the same way in the future as your software is currently. Opportunities for music will be much broader than distribution off a band's website.
What radio station will you listen to in the future? Are there going to BE radio stations as we know it in the future? I think (hope) we're going to see everything shifting to streaming radio in the future, with a rich selection available on your PC, your car radio, your cell phone... If you hear a song you like, hit a button and it will automatically be transferred to your catalog, with a dime deducted from your account. At ten cents a pop and the convenience of "one-click shopping" I predict people will be buying songs like never before, and getting exposure to 2 million people will indeed be possible even for a mediocre band.
Why are a lot of the posts about doing end runs and possible ways to still rip off the music. It's called capitalism. It's a stupid idea so don't use the service and it'll go away. This is right up there with those bone head ideas for selling limited time and limited play disks. Let's fill up the landfills with disks that are only good for one play. That died young and so will this. If you want to hear a song once it's called a radio and it's free not $0.10.
can I get my money back? BTW it seems to be free right now. Trying to get me hooked?
Let me patch a 1/8" cable from my output to my input (or do it virtually) and run a Sound Recorder. So much for 'rent', lol. @Music/RIAA: The war is futile, quit wasting money and resources fighting the inevitable. Your war ends when you give up, you are outnumbered by a majority that disagrees, in time this majority will be the majority that votes. Quit now while you've still got genitals.
I have been using lala.com for the last 2 month and I love it. I use to use Pandora, but now all I use is lala. I even stopped using my ipod at work and at home. I still need my ipod for road trips and working out though.
Lala is great to check out new bands, listen to whole albums before you add them to your collection, buy mp3's, and see what your friends in lala have been listening to.
I also like having my music stored on their servers. I can access all of my music from any computer that has a internet connection. There is always the possibility that lala won't make it. If that happens you can just buy and download the mp3's that you don't own. Because lala lets you upload all of the music that you already own to their servers you don't have to buy that music again to listen to it on their site.
Since lala only charges you 10 cents to add a song to your collection on their server and 79 cents to download an mp3 after you add a song to your collection you are still saving money by using lala rather than purchasing music from amazon, itunes and wallmart. If you just want to download a track without adding it to your collection then it's 89 cents.
Lala isn't for everyone though. It's great for people who like to download music and it's even better for people who listen to music on their computer. I hook up my laptop to my stereo at home and listen music on lala.com all the time. That way I don't have to buy and download any mp3's. I only buy mp3's that I want to put on my ipod for my road trips or working out.
I think lala is going to do well in the online music industry. As more devices are coming with features such as wifi and browsers more of these devices will be able to access your entire music library with out having to haul all your music around with you.
Jon
Although it is obvious that the old business model is broken it is not clear which alternative models will work. I am currently trying out a free music approach. As I stated in a comment yesterday, last month I released Politics Apocalypse, a full length album using the creative commons licence attribution 3.0. This allows you to use the music however you please (including in commercial projects) so long as you give credit. Promotion has gone really well and we have had > 3500 full album downloads since then. We have a name-your-own-price CD; which is a unique concept where you can name your own price (starting at cost price) for a CD. And we accept donations. However, so far the number of donations and CD orders are MUCH lower than the number of album downloads and positive feedback. We have just added a new members area of the website. The members area contains new songs as they are finished, available to members long before they are released in album form to the rest of the world. Anyone who supports us by donating, ordering a CD (name-your-own-price) or submitting creative feedback are given an account. Hopefully this new addition will encourage donations. So while charging people "for nothing" (as the post is tagged) is clearly not the best idea, it is not clear what alternative is. We do have to keep trying out new ideas, until it becomes clear how the music "business" can work without the "industry"; record labels who rip off artists and consumers by charging exorbitant amounts for music in an outdated format (CDs, DRM). The statistics of downloads/orders etc are on the website. http://www.politicsapocalypse.com/ [politicsapocalypse.com]
$0.10 / ea @ 290 songs per gigabyte = $29.00 * 16 GB = $464.00 = iPod capacity number of songs tethered to internet
Perl script * N songs = $0.00 = songs I can listen to anywhere, anytime.
Why pay for inconveinence?
The script seems to issue a 404 now at the music download URL. Just so you know.
This is all great until LaLa goes under, or simply does a Microsoft and just leaves millions of PlaysForSure customers with a lot of paid-for but now unplayable music, just because of a change in DRM and marketing strategy. This model does nothing to guarantee you will always be able to access the music you already paid for.
Furthermore, what about all the times you want to play your music when you're not able to use an internet connection?
Call me old-fashioned but when I buy something I still expect to get something tangible I can be in control of, and use when I want. If that isn't the case then I just don't buy it. I suspect there are still enough people like me that will tip the balance on this.
>> What do you think the music industry is going to do?
Hopefully shrivel up and die like the worthless leeches they are, so that a much less formulaic and marketing-centric music industry can take its place. Lets get back to where musical ability sells music, not just the marketing hype around image, gender, age and breast size of the performer. Do you know how many excellent musicians there are out there that we never get to hear just because they don't fit some plastic corporate exec's idea of a marketable image?
The world doesn't need more middle-men.
Isn't Deezer legal or what? Same concept, totally free, plenty of songs available, playlist function and everything you'd expect from an online music service.
What is it that I don't get?
I think the real question is: would RIAA rent my 10 cents for a song?
- Content . . . may be synched to no more than five (5) la la-authorized portable devices at any one time.
- Downloads of copyrightable materials purchased through the Site are downloaded to your account's Personal Server Space and include a security framework using technology that protects digital information and imposes usage rules established by la la and its licensors ("Usage Rules")
- You can upload your music to their service; but there's a catch:
- la la reserves the right to . . . change its fees and charges at any time for any reason. You agree that as a condition of your use of the Site and Services, you authorize la la or its agents to charge your credit card for any fees or charges you incur in the use of the Site or Services.
No thanks... I'll pass!Only 5?
Wait: I thought the stuff you bought was DRM-free ??
Before uploading you must register your personal computer with la la ("Registered PC"). No more than three (3) Registered PCs may be associated with your account at any one time.
o_O
Select "What U Hear" in my sound card settings means I can record whatever I'm listening to.
Free music!
No sig today...
Because the other services are arguably illegal pending certain court cases. You mentioned YouTube, which is a couple stories away in today's same news batch.
This is supposedly an "iTunes" successor which lets you play songs in "cloudspace" until you decide which ones you give a damn enough to download.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Am I the only one that is worried about "If you already have a music library on your computer, our Music Mover application gets your music online so fast it seems like magic. It's free and it works for Mac, too."
And then what? Do I now have to produce receipts for every song in my collection or I get sued?
No. Buy, certainly. I'm interested in owning, not renting. And that is pretty universal for anything I purchase.
There are no leasing/renting terms that could convince me to do so. I want control of my budget, and renting everything is the antithesis of that.
And no, paying for a service - such as a cell phone - is more than merely 'renting/leasing' since there is a lot of backend support that is required to support it and connect to others to make that service useful; versus renting music or movies where the only backend support is what is required to hold everything, which I can easily do myself for my own collection - be it secondary or tertiary storage.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
...prove that you own a "DRM-free" MP3 if your computer is seized? What if I format my HD? What if I close my lala or lulu or whatever the fuck it's called account?
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
"TELL you what it sounds like! This customized SongReport will be sent to you - electronically - for you to use and enjoy... the way the artists intended."
Great!
Where do I sign up?
Since I don't have time to listen to listen to 4,000 songs, I'll just subcontract you as work-for-hire for media content that you just gave me the rights to *USE*.
Always call the bluff on sarcasm. There might be money to be made.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Cool, if nobody will ever download them, are they storing them in /dev/null?
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Please, can anybody tell me how is this schema so much worse than cinemas, where you pay to see a film once?
OMGawd, that's brilliant!
Take something like this one from a couple days ago:
"News: $4 Million In Fines For Linking To Infringing Files"
Leading Question:
"How do users determine if a site is legal?"
*Crickets!*
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I'm thinkin' that this is prohibited, but I read articles, not TOS docs for services I don't use. Probably something like "You agree not to share your password" and such.
However, if someone managed to limbo their way into legality with a killer maneuver, that would be beautiful.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
goodluckwiththat
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
I think even the zealous types might respect "Attribution" if it was Free_Beer and "Close to Free_Speech".
Another way to call it is the "Respect-Supercommercial" license.
I am not paying anything today - that's just pure retail that everyone is already tired of. But presuming a song like track 7's "Fight the Storm" filters its way into my core listening set *because of your generous terms*, then at some future time I am likely to contact you. It's a delayed revenue stream - "make sure the value is worth it".
You made a crucial concession "even in commercial projects". If I dream up some nifty project, I may very well include one of your songs... because I have to do all the dev. work *up front*. Then supposing I get lucky and make a few bucks... then I can flip a couple your way.
I haven't scoured your terms, but I think your intent is to allow "derivative" works with attribution of inspiration. That's important because YouTube is all about quick bursts of mashup creativity.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Top artists
Lala's most listened to Metal artists
1. Elton John
Refund, plz!
Next question?
More seriously - I threw away my music collection over a decade ago, and none of the audio shit that I hear coming from passing cars, out of night clubs etc give me any reason to expect that I'll increase the amount I listen to in the foreseeable future.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
No, but i'd buy that for a dollar.
Hell no, motherfucker!
Its like www.deezer.com, except that it cost money...
http://www.last.fm/ is completely free and legal and wonderful!
"lack of quality control is one of the pillars of slashdot"
It's called that because the music industry keeps putting their fingers in their ears and saying "lalalalalala can't hear you!".
In the about us section, do they include the fact that they use artist's web pages and youtube to stream music? Obviously some of those would be hard to sell. (I searched for Motorpsycho, which featured songs exclusively from youtube and the band's web page. The versions are mostly live versions, and a lot of stuff not even available for download)
Did anyone else notice the blurb about the Music Mover?
From: http://next.lala.com/#help/Help
"How do I upload music I already own to my collection? To listen to the music you already own from your Lala collection, install the Music Mover software. Music Mover will then find all of the songs on your computer. If a song you already own is available for streaming on Lala, it will instantly be included in your collection for listening. The remaining songs that were not matched to a streaming song will then begin uploading to your collection behind the scenes."
Am I the only one here that is nervous about sending a list of every MP3 I have to a service that the RIAA seems to like? It could just be a way for them to find new targets.
Not worth paying for - it simply sounds bad.
*snort*
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
I fail to understand how this could be useful to consumers, regardless of the price.
Always listen to music through web-browser? That's just awkward. If you can buy DRM-free MP3s, then it is sort of ok.
Some of the material on the lala site is crappy clipped home digitized that they snagged off the gnutella and torrent sites.
...ambitious attempt to reinvigorate people to buying music online. Funny, that. I never realized Apple was having such a hard time with the iTunes store, being the number one retailer of music and all.You pay 10c for each song, and then you can play/stream the song anywhere from any computer, right?
So, for $10 I can have 100 songs, and for $100 1000 songs. And I never have to pay again?
I don't think that is too bad...
Until recently, I only used emusic.com and/or amazon.com for MP3s, due to lack of DRM. iTunes Plus, for the same price, now has DRM-free 256k AAC, as well.
LaLa started up several years ago as a used CD trading business. When a member receives a CD they request, the use up a credit. When a member ships a CD to any requester, they get a credit. LaLa gets $1 fee (+$0.75 shipping) per trade. LaLa provides all the envelopes and cardboard sleeves. It's a great service. I've traded hundreds of unwanted CDs for CDs I do want. Of course, nothing stops you from ripping a CD before passing it along. I guess that business model wasn't as profitable as LaLa hoped, so they switched to offering a rent-a-song-music-locker concept. Now they only market the rent-a-song and don't even admit they still run the CD trading service. I suggest you join LaLa, but don't pay a dime for rental. Opt in for trading CDs, rip away, and screw the RIAA.
Birth is the leading cause of death.
Sure, Amie Street has a lot of obscure/unknown Indie bands. (Some of them are really good, too!) They also have some pretty big names, though. Here's a short list:
Barenaked Ladies
Sarah Mclachlan
Elvis Presley
B.B. King
Louis Armstrong
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Soo..... it's like radio... but instead of being free, I pay for it???
Wrong. You loose. Try again.
When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours-Stephen Roberts
If you want to listen to just about any popular song, cruise on over to YouTube and search for it. It usually has some lame amateur video to go with it, but I just minimize the window and listen to the song.
YouTube has become my internet jukebox.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
If you can stream it, I can record it.
No I won't pay a dime anyway.
I tried out their downloadable client this morning. Seemed to work as expected.
Then windows died with a "Windows Subsystem System process has terminated unexpectedly." I get this every time I boot up and log in. The only recent change is installing Lala's client.
It could be unrelated, it could be an innocent bug in their software. I'll try to isolate the problem and report back as a reply to this message, but in the interim I thought some people may want to hold off trying the client for now.
Anyone else have similar experiences?
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
/me ducks
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
"Lala is an online music service where you can listen, upload, trade, and buy music.
... ?
Unforuntely it requires javascript, similar to most major websites on the internet."
Unforuntely
Streaming music from the internet, amazing. Why would I pay 10 cents for something that is easy to find for free. The majority of new albums that come out have free streams. Personal copies are the hard part.
Don't know what you get if you pay for a song. I just got an account to check it out, and as one of my 50 free songs took Bohemian Rhapsody.
This song has some very clear and important stereo components... all gone.
Worse... It isn't even a good Mono... Seems that tracks are just cut out.
Hooked up Audacity to see what was coming out my stereo jack.
Mono. Checked various songs. All mono.
Why would anyone pay anything for mono?
if you can upload your own music.... what prevents you from
a) abusing it for distributing pirated music a la rapidshare
b) just basically getting them to store your (probably pirated) music for free so
on the other hand, b) is a good reason it might succeed (think ipod: that thing allowed pirated MP3s too)
Available at deezer.com
This just in, they removed the full versions (for free), now it just plays the 30 second sample and requests you to add it for 10 cents (or your first 50 free songs)
Was fun while it lasted though.
Disclaimer: I am not god.
We may not be created equal
But we can be treated equal.
I get it now - you get to stream the song, like Last.fm (what an appropriate name), and then you pay thru your nose for any music you wish to listen.
Before, radio stations would pay for a licence to broadcast each song - a centralized organization would then pay the companies for each broadcast of a song. Bigger hits mean bigger revenues.
This model is now extended to listeners. Instead of ONLY charging the radio station and they lose money, why not charge the listener himself? This way, no radio is "given away" anymore - radio will finally be pay-per-use.
These record companies are eating artists alive, eating record-buyers alive, and now are trying to get more money off us with a tax on internet service, AND charging us for every listen.
How much is this one song worth to you? 5 jobs, a cigar box, and your bank account?
Sébastien Ferland couzin2000@gmail.com freedom | liberté | libertad | freiheit | libertà libertade |
This is just stupid. Digital audio recorders are ubiquitous. Anyone can make a high quality recording right from the stereo output jack of their computer, or even a passable recording by putting a microphone in front of the speakers. There just isn't any way to prevent that.
When will these recording-industry idiots learn?
First of all, there wouldn't be commercial or distributed music without the music industry. What exists today is because they make the economic risk - and have made the economic risk for the last 80 years building the demand for music that exists today.
The people stealing the music without paying for it are the leeches.
And yes, the world needs middle men because they provide most of the jobs us occupy. (In case you don't understand, websites and software distributing music are middlemen too.) It wouldn't hurt you to take some business theory and history classes. You haven't a clue.
So we pay for them to keep the songs on their site, are they paying comcast (or whoever) extra for the "fast lane" downloads (if net neutrality fails?)
Or do we have to pay for that too?
You can take it a step further. From what I've read, the files go over http. You can use mplayer on the command line and feed it the URL, and instead of playing the music to the sound card, you can have the output go to a file. Essentially you just record the stream and voila, you've saved the song. I don't recall since it's been a while since I've tried this technique, but I do remember that it's quite easy to use mplayer in this fashion.
Why would one pay $.10 per song when you can stream music for free on many other services, and those services can be played on any computer?
This may be the worst idea the business has surmised in some time, and they've come up with many awful ones.
a major oversight plagues all conversations about the RIAA and IPL - what services do record labels or the RIAA provide to artists or consumers? primarily marketing, and secondarily recording and production - *but are these still relevant?* what services to ableton, digidesign, native instruments, line 6, etc. provide? accessibly-priced, extremely high quality recording, mixing and production capabilities. what services do digg, stumbleupon, tunecore, etc. provide? free, reasonably meritocratic, reasonably trustworthy marketing of good, free music. why do we need record labels anymore? how are they necessary in the production or distribution of music? and if the market is flooded with high-quality free music, how will they survive as a business entity? i think this whole situation is going to disappear before it reaches its legal conclusion.