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."

Comments

Would you lick my balls for a quarter?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would rent a song for a dime if you would lick my balls for a quarter.

Re:Would you lick my balls for a quarter?

[moderatorrater]

It's easier than what the RIAA makes us do for two and a half songs.

Re:Would you lick my balls for a quarter?

[jaguth]

1) Lick Balls
2) ??????????
3) Profit!

Re:Would you lick my balls for a quarter?

[phat_cartman]

Once I ate 5 pennies, and shit a nickel.

Imaginary Property

[NoobixCube]

So now we're meant to pay ten cents for the right to imagine we have imaginary property?

Re:Imaginary Property

[mrbluze]

So now we're meant to pay ten cents for the right to imagine we have imaginary property? I think they are anticipating the death of radio, which is essentially the same thing except they determine what kind of rubbish you listen to in between the ads. Here you get to pay 10c per song to choose what kind of rubbish you want to listen to whilst (probably) having to read ads anyway.

Re:Imaginary Property

[Unending]

it looks like they are offering the songs in MP3 format for 89Â... I'm not sure, but I think the summary isn't giving the full picture.

Re:Imaginary Property

[QRDeNameland]

As long as it's an imaginary ten cents...

Re:Imaginary Property

[TubeSteak]

So now we're meant to pay ten cents for the right to imagine we have imaginary property? There are plenty of programs out there that can snatch streaming audio/video from an embedded flash object.

I wonder what the quality of the audio is?

Re:Imaginary Property

[Darkness404]

From my experience using Audacity (for non-commercial music that I didn't want to hunt to download, so you can back off RIAA inquisitors), if you save it in a lossless format there is little difference, but if you try to encode it as MP3 or OGG at any but the highest bitrates, the quality noticeably suffers.

Re:Imaginary Property

[TheSHAD0W]

I suppose you've never heard the term "fiat currency"?

Re:Imaginary Property

[Original Replica]

So if we pay per song, aside form the obvious distraction of having to make all of our own song playlists (radio pays people for that same job) we also get to pay about $2.00 per hour for the rental of songs. Between commuting and the work day, let's call that ten hours of rental radio, $20 per day. So by the end of the second week you could have purchased a href=http://shop.sirius.com/edealinv/servlet/ExecMacro?nurl=control/StoreDirectory.vm&ctl_nbr=2640&catLevel=1&catParentID=7874&scId=7874&oldParentID=7870>satellite radio and had the same thing minus the hour a day of lost productivity while you fiddle with your playlist.

Re:Imaginary Property

[Tony Hoyle]

Is that what you buy cheap french cars with?

Re:Imaginary Property

[adamofgreyskull]

Short answer....no.

"Fiat S.p.A. (Fiat Group) is an Italian automobile manufacturer, engine manufacturer, financial and industrial group based in Turin, Northern Italy."

Re:Imaginary Property

[zenslug]

You build your online music collection by uploading your own music or by paying 10 cents to add music you don't already own. Once in your collection, stream as much as you want for no additional cost.

If you want to get the MP3, you pay 89 cents to download a high quality version.

Re:Imaginary Property

[anexkahn]

Will they accept my World of Warcraft currency?

Re:Imaginary Property

[zenslug]

I think it really depends on how you listen to your music. A lot of people like to listen to a rolling window of the same 100 songs. It grows and changes over time, but you get hooked on a new band or a new album, and you want to hear that for a while. You pay 10 cents (or upload your own) and then you're set. This isn't for everyone, that's for sure.

Re:Imaginary Property

[Chandon Seldon]

If you want to get the MP3, you pay 89 cents to download a high quality version.

Or you pay current market value, 0 cents, and download the whole album in a lossless format.

Re:Imaginary Property

[topherhenk]

from the article.

Next to every song is an "Add" button which for a single credit will add the tune to your personal collection. Credits cost 10 cents and each new customer gets 50 credits for free.

Once a song is added it is accessible from your "My Collection" area where it can be listened to an unlimited number of times.

So you can listen to it online as much as you want for $0.10, you just can't take it with you.

Re:Imaginary Property

[zenslug]

10 cents is to listen to it an unlimited number of times. If you already own the song, upload it and listen to it for free as well, it costs you nothing. The only time you pay for the song is when you don't already own it and when you want to listen to it more than once.

The first listen is free.

If you want to download a 256kbps VBR MP3, that's an option too. If you want to buy the CD, that's also available.

Re:Imaginary Property

[interstellar_donkey]

Exactly. What a the record companies are failing to realize is that they aren't going to stop people for downloading music, so the best they can do is give someone a good reason to pay for it. In this case, it's convenience.

I never used iTunes, because I found the interface clunky and the DRM crap wasn't worth it. I have started, however, to buy mp3s off Amazon. They've got a pretty deep colection, with a lot of neat obscure stuff that can be had for less than a dollar.

The best part? It's DRM free. So when I buy the mp3, it's mine. I can do with it what I want (burn to a CD for my car, put it on my mp3 player . . . whatever. And I can get this a lot faster than searching through countless p2p and torrent sites to see if they have the particular recording I want (which, many times, they don't).

Re:Imaginary Property

[jekewa]

Before we dig into the viability of such a service, consider a similar service that already exists. Surely you've heard of jukeboxes. They have them in diners and bars near you, I'm sure. I think most offer a small number of songs for a number of pennies each (three for a quarter, or whatever). You plunk in your change, pick from the limited list, wait for your turn in the queue, listen eventually to your song, and move on. Repeat as desired.

Moving on from whether or not the service may be viable, if YOU read the article, you'll see that you were wrong in your understanding of how it works.

The article at the first link says "For just 10 cents you'll be able to select a song to add to your Music Locker to play whenever you like." (I copied and pasted between the quotes...) Not per listen, as you suggest, but per song. In case you don't want to scour the whole article, it's the second sentence in the first paragraph...

If you follow the seekrit link and look at the "how it works," (link at the bottom) you'll see that in fact you can actually listen to any song for free, once (first question), not dropping the dime to see if you like the song. It also confirms that for your thin dime, you add the song to your list to listen to again any time you want (second question). Additionally, if you want to download the song to another device (iPod, for example), that dime counts towards the purchase of that song.

That all seems better than a diner jukebox to me.

This will work for some, if not many.

Re:Imaginary Property

[aurispector]

You make a good point and made me realize why I never bought any music downloads. Basically, I'm completely turned off by the DRM approach offered by the major outlets. Why waste my money? I'm not that organized with my files-some are here and some are there so if it's DRM'd I can guarantee it won't run when I want it.

If they would just break down and sell it all without DRM I might consider it. IF it was cheaper. My feeling is that they've always been too expensive - MP3 files at $0.99 cost almost as much as a CD. CD's are DRM-free, lossless and easily ripped anytime you want to any device at any bitrate. Sell downloads for a dime. At $0.10 it becomes an impulse buy.

I'd download all day and twice on sunday at $0.10/track. They need to adapt to the reality that mp3's are practically free and leverage really cheap downloads with advertising. They might even sell some CD's.

Re:Imaginary Property

[Akaihiryuu]

10 cents is the maximum I would be willing to pay for a downloaded song in a lossless format with no DRM. Rent? Not a chance.

Re:Imaginary Property

[Phybersyk0]

Quote:
topherhenk said:
"So you can listen to it online as much as you want for $0.10, you just can't take it with you."
Heh, says you. Creative Labs SoundBlaster Audigy ZS2 "What-U-Hear" Recording controls say differently. i gotz mp3's now bitchez!!!!

Re:Imaginary Property

[Murphy Murph]

Creative Labs SoundBlaster Audigy ZS2 "What-U-Hear" Recording controls say differently. i gotz mp3's now bitchez!!!!

Congratulations, you have successfully saved the .wav output of a low-bitrate MP3. You going to save that to 500Kbps FLAC, or are you going to do a (nasty) low-bitrate lossy to low-bitrate lossy transcode?

If you can listen, you can save

[Palmyst]

If you can listen, you can save, and it won't be long before a hack for that is posted on slashdot.

Re:If you can listen, you can save

[mrbluze]

mwahahahahahaaaaaaa!! When will they learn? And considering for less than 10c you can copy it from a mate, that's even better value, without breaking the license agreement any more or less than you were implying.. heh heh heh!

Re:If you can listen, you can save

[MyDixieWrecked]

However, the quality of the vast majority of streaming music that's available online is not good enough for anyone who cares about what they listen to.

There are these services that are popping up left and right that enable you to download music from youtube (it basically rips the audio out of the FLV files and makes an mp3 that you can download or just creates a playlist of the video files without displaying the video for you to stream from your browser). I hate those things because the quality of youtube (both the video and the audio) are very low. It reminds me of what passed for normal desktop video in 98/99.

For the last decade I've been ripping my CDs the moment I get back to my computer and there are many tracks that I'd never listened to in their full quality. Being that I started ripping at 128kbps and switched to 192 shortly thereafter, I've been throwing out a big chunk of audio data. It wasn't until I listened to some full-quality, lossless tracks that I realized how much quality I was actually throwing away.

Low quality online-only audio is ok for streaming, especially if you're using it as background music from your PC speakers, but if you're going to listen on headphones or through any kind of decent speakers, even the iTunes purchased tracks aren't high quality enough... how can they expect us to pay [anything] for such inferior quality?

Re:If you can listen, you can save

[maglor_83]

how can they expect us to pay [anything] for such inferior quality? Because the vast majority of people find such inferior quality completely acceptable.

Harrumph

[RollingThunder]

Music Search: nerdcore

Sorry, no matches for you.

Sorry, no business for you.

A-Hole vulnerability

[corsec67]

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.

Doesn't seem so bad...

[pirodude]

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.

Re:Doesn't seem so bad...

[pirodude]

http://next.lala.com/api/AutoComplete/songAutoComplete?prefix=bt

Pass URL encoded downloadToken to:

http://next.lala.com/api/Player/getTrackUrls?flash=true&webSrc=lala&widgetId=LalaHeadlessPlayer&T=

url gives you the mp3 url, it's not a full mp3, sounds backwards, but it's a start to downloading from them.

Re:Doesn't seem so bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

To expand on that previous finding, here's a script that lets you download any song you want:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use LWP::Simple;
use Data::Dumper;
use JSON;
$|=1;

die "$0 <search param>" unless $ARGV[0];
my $root_url = "http://next.lala.com/api/AutoComplete/songAutoComplete";
my $content = get "$root_url?prefix=$ARGV[0]";
my $ref = from_json($content);
my $num = 0;
foreach (@{$ref->{data}->{list}}) {
  print "$num : $_->{artist} - $_->{title}\n";
  $num++;
}
print "Download which? > ";
my $req = <STDIN>;
die "not valid" if ($req < 0 or $req > $num);
my $download_url = "http://next.lala.com/api/Player/getTrackUrls?flash=true&webSrc=lala&widgetId=LalaHeadlessPlayer&T=" . $ref->{data}->{list}->[$req]->{playToken};
my $play_url = get $download_url;
my $play_ref = from_json($play_url);
my $download_link = $play_ref->{data}->[0]->{url};
print "Getting: $download_link\n";
my $filename = $ref->{data}->{list}->[$req]->{artist} ."-" . $ref->{data}->{list}->[$req]->{title} . ".mp3";
print "Downloading to $filename\n";
system("wget -O '$filename' $download_link");

It's quick, it's dirty, but it works:

perl download.pl tiesto
0 : Tiesto - Ten Seconds Before Sunrise
1 : Ti&#195;&#171;sto - Forever Today
Download which? > 0
Getting: http://cfs-listen-52.lala.com/contentfs/content?t=NjU1MzVVNDM2OTE1OQ%3D%3D-vSOzDPPcV8VwbKW6Bwdv%2FQ%3D%3D
Downloading to Tiesto-Ten Seconds Before Sunrise.mp3
--2008-05-27 18:16:09--  http://cfs-listen-52.lala.com/contentfs/content?t=NjU1MzVVNDM2OTE1OQ%3D%3D-vSOzDPPcV8VwbKW6Bwdv%2FQ%3D%3D
Resolving cfs-listen-52.lala.com... 209.237.235.158
Connecting to cfs-listen-52.lala.com|209.237.235.158|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 3609494 (3.4M) [audio/x-mpeg]
Saving to: `Tiesto-Ten Seconds Before Sunrise.mp3'

Re:Doesn't seem so bad...

[JeremyBanks]

I really should preview. >_<

#!/usr/bin/env python
# encoding: utf-8
import urllib
import re

def get(url):
    return urllib.urlopen(url).read()

def getMusic(query):
    encoded = query.replace(" ", "%20")

    feedURL = "http://next.lala.com/api/AutoComplete/songAutoComplete?prefix=%s&webSrc=lala" % encoded

    page = get(feedURL)

    pattern = re.compile(r"\"playToken\": *\"([^\"]+)\"")

    tokens = pattern.findall(page)

    print "%i tokens found." % len(tokens)

    for token in tokens:
        url = "http://next.lala.com/api/Player/getTrackUrls?flash=true&webSrc=lala&widgetId=LalaHeadlessPlayer&T=" + token

        fileURL, = re.findall(r"\"url\": *\"([^\"]+)\"", get(url))

        print "Downloading %s" % token

        output = open("%s.mp3" % token[:6], "w")
        output.write(get(fileURL))
        output.close()

def main():
    getMusic("Chemical Brothers")

if __name__ == "__main__": main()

Re:Doesn't seem so bad...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a better version that gets many more results from a different webservice.  Apparently the front page one is very limited:

This one will do paging, use n/p to go next/previous  when prompted.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use LWP::Simple;
use Data::Dumper;
use JSON;
$|=1;

die "$0 <search param>" unless $ARGV[0];
my $ref;
my $offset;
my $req;
while(1) {
  $req = "";
  my $root_url = "http://next.lala.com/api/SearchUtils/search/v19.110.0-24?Q=$ARGV[0]&sortKey=relevance&sortDir=desc&Nb=100&Sk=$offset&webSrc=lala";
  my $content = get $root_url;
  $content =~ s/new Date\((\d+)\)/$1/g;
  $ref = from_json($content);

  my $num = 0;
  foreach (@{$ref->{data}->{songs}->{list}}) {
    print "$num : $_->{artist} - $_->{title}\n";
    $num++;
  }

  print "Download which? > ";
  chomp($req = <STDIN>);
  if ($req =~ /n/) {
    $offset+=100;
    next;
  }
  if ($req =~ /p/) {
    $offset-=100;
    $offset=0 if $offset<0;
    next;
  }
  if ($req !~ /\d+/ or $req < 0 or $req > $num) {
    print "Invalid!\n";
    next;
  }
  last;
}
my $download_url = "http://next.lala.com/api/Player/getTrackUrls?flash=true&webSrc=lala&widgetId=LalaHeadlessPlayer&T=" . $ref->{data}->{songs}->{list}->[$req]->{playToken};
my $play_url = get $download_url;
my $play_ref = from_json($play_url);
my $download_link = $play_ref->{data}->[0]->{url};
print "Getting: $download_link\n";
my $filename = $ref->{data}->{list}->[$req]->{artist} ."-" . $ref->{data}->{list}->[$req]->{title} . ".mp3";
print "Downloading to $filename\n";
system("wget -O '$filename' $download_link");

Re:Doesn't seem so bad...

[pirodude]

Crap didn't test,
replace the $filename line with

my $filename = $ref->{data}->{songs}->{list}->[$req]->{artist} ."-" . $ref->{data}->{songs}->{list}->[$req]->{title} . ".mp3";

Re:Doesn't seem so bad...

[aarku]

Here's a fixed one that uses utf-8:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use LWP::Simple;
use Data::Dumper;
use JSON;
$|=1;

die "$0 <search param>" unless $ARGV[0];
my $ref;
my $offset;
my $req;
while(1) {
  $req = "";
  my $root_url = "http://next.lala.com/api/SearchUtils/search/v19.110.0-24?Q=$ARGV[0]&sortKey=relevance&sortDir=desc&Nb=100&Sk=$offset&webSrc=lala";
  my $content = get $root_url;
  $content =~ s/new Date\((\d+)\)/$1/g;
  $ref = from_json($content, {utf8 => 1});

  my $num = 0;
  foreach (@{$ref->{data}->{songs}->{list}}) {
    next if $_->{playType} eq "Sample";
    print "$num : $_->{artist} - $_->{title}\n";
    $num++;
  }

  print "Download which? > ";
  chomp($req = <STDIN>);
  if ($req =~ /n/) {
    $offset+=100;
    next;
  }
  if ($req =~ /p/) {
    $offset-=100;
    $offset=0 if $offset<0;
    next;
  }
  if ($req !~ /\d+/ or $req < 0 or $req > $num) {
    print "Invalid!\n";
    next;
  }
  last;
}
my $download_url = "http://next.lala.com/api/Player/getTrackUrls?flash=true&webSrc=lala&widgetId=LalaHeadlessPlayer&T=" . $ref->{data}->{songs}->{list}->[$req]->{playToken};
my $play_url = get $download_url;
my $play_ref = from_json($play_url);
my $download_link = $play_ref->{data}->[0]->{url};
print "Getting: $download_link\n";
my $filename = $ref->{data}->{songs}->{list}->[$req]->{artist} ."-" . $ref->{data}->{songs}->{list}->[$req]->{title} . ".mp3";
print "Downloading to $filename\n";
system("curl -o '$filename' $download_link");

What?

[willyhill]

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.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

From http://next.lala.com/#howitworks :

Want MP3 downloads?
You can buy DRM-free MP3s for your iPod or other portable device for just 79 [cents] more. So, it's a lot like Amazon MP3 but with a "trial version" feature, except you have to pay for the trial.

Also, my CAPTCHA is "patents". How apropos.

Re:What?

[IP_Troll]

I believe this "submission" a way to get people on the site so that lala can tell their investors "We had 1 million hits within one day of launch."

Slashdot fell for it and is now giving a never heard of site massive traffic which will appear positive to investors.

Re:What?

[tripmine]

So what? This site is a stupid idea. If they go ahead with it just because of the slashdot effect, boy will they be in for a surprise.

Re:What?

[T-Bone_142]

except you can listen to any song for free the first time.

Re:What?

[dirk]

Does no one actually bother to check things out before they post? The 10 cents is for the ability to stream the song from their site as many times and as often as you want (as long as they are in business). For a dime, you have access to the song online as much as you want. For the extra 79 cents, you can then download it and keep it on your MP3 player (just like iTunes or Amazon).

To me, this seems like a damn good idea. The more be become connected, the more there isn't much difference between online and offline. Except for my MP3 player (which gets used about once a week) and the MP3 cds I play in the car, there is no difference between playing something off my HD and streaming it. I have an always on internet connection at both work and home, so to me, paying 10 cents to be able to have the songs I want always available seems like a good deal.

I find it interesting that everyone always says the record companies should come up with new ideas, but when they do, people complain because it isn't a simple "give me mp3 for incredibly low price". The only idea people are interested in is free (or close to free) music.

Eh?

[TheRealMindChild]

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.

Re:Eh?

[Idbar]

As far as I understood, you can hear it once with no charge, then you have to pay to put it in your locker and listen to it as many times you want.

Although, I think the idea is not bad at all, I believe is way ahead of its time for one reason:
I could use my cellphone (smartphone, iphone like) and listen music over internet, but I'd need an Internet plan. That's not a problem for people using iPhones, but they will certainly prefer to use iTunes. I don't know about the rest.
If I'm not able to listen to my music, without paying for an additional Internet service, the music turns out to be more expensive than it really looks like, and it will interfere with my eventual browsing due to bandwidth consumption.

So, why would I use it anyways?

Re:Eh?

[shark72]

"too bad it's not a dime to rent it for say, a month or something like that. Or to just have unlimited access to it."

The writeup states that the dime allows you to listen to it for an unlimited amount of times.

I did a quick bit of analysis. I presently subscribe to Rhapsody for $14 a month. I have about 200 tracks in my Rhapsody library. To rent these tracks via lala for a year (or any arbitrary time) would cost $20 for the year, vs. the $14 per month for Rhapsody.

Rhapsody and lala do not compare directly. Rhapsody allows for downloading to an MP3 player; this is a non-issue for me because I use Rhapsody exclusively on my Squeezebox Duet.

"There are a lot of people complaining in this article about that they just don't like it or are against the entire idea. How about some more people with ideas on how to make it work for you?"

The average Slashdotter will insist on nothing less than uncompressed FLAC files for ten cents each, plus a pony. It's also common for us to swear up and down that this is economically feasible; we just know it. Although this is utterly common sense to your typical Slashdotter, nobody has yet stepped up to actually do it.

Re:Eh?

[jalefkowit]

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.

What you want is last.fm -- you can listen to any song up to 3 times a day for free. Any more than that and you have to subscribe. Not great for heavy listening, but perfect for when you get a sudden jones.

(Note: not all songs are available for free listening on last.fm yet. They're in the process of moving their whole library to the free-play model, but it'll take some time to get everything moved over. In my experience about 70% of the tracks I search for are good to go.)

Every permutation...

[ConceptJunkie]

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.

Sshhh don't tell anybody about this

[blhack]

Click here

Unlimited free music with links to purchase it if you want. 100% legal. 100% major labels. Tons of obscure stuff too.

Re:Sshhh don't tell anybody about this

[blhack]

Hardly a Last.fm ripoff. Imeem has quite a bit MORE music, as well as a much more intuitive interface.

btw this is my last.fm page: Blhack
and this is my imeem.com page: Blhack

Point being that I've been around last for quite some time....its not just a pointless slashvertisement for imeem.

Re:Sshhh don't tell anybody about this

[mapkinase]

It's already storage of choice in Cyrillic social networks...

i like Rhapsody

[FredFredrickson]

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.

Re:i like Rhapsody

[shark72]

What if lala were to magically appear on your Duet's screen? That would equalize the playing field a little more. Depending on how bit your Rhapsody library is, it might save you money in the long run to use lala. You're already paying a rental fee to listen to Rhapsody on your Duet; the key difference is that Rhapsody is $14 a month for all you can eat, while lala is a la carte rental.

Much of my music listening is ephemeral. I recently added the new Donna Summer album to my Rhapsody library (it's actually pretty decent). This is how it would break down for me:

• via Rhapsody: $14 a month to keep and listen to the new Donna Summer album for as long as I like
• via iTunes: $10 to have a copy forever
• via lala: $0.80 to keep and listen to it for as long as I like

The thing is that I don't want to have it forever. It is simply not a great album and I'm sure that next month I'll be on to something else.

The other thing is that lala does not carry this album, so it's moot. A 5MM track library makes no difference if they don't have enough of the stuff that you want.

It's not that people won't pay for music

[D'Sphitz]

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.

Re:It's not that people won't pay for music

[jalefkowit]

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.

1998 called, it wants its rant back.

Want high quality DRM free music? Here you go. Non-DRMed MP3 files, VBR-encoded with LAME (average bit rate 256kpbs), for $0.89 each. They even fill out the ID3 tags for you (including album art, for pete's sake) so you can just drop it into your music player of choice and go.

I agree Lala sucks, but the days when you could claim some moral legitimacy for leeching music torrents are over. There's really no justification for "getting it for free" anymore when there are completely legal, easy, and geek-friendly ways to get the music that also puts some money in the artist's pocket.

Lala sounded familiar...

[QRDeNameland]

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.

Re:Lala sounded familiar...

[flaming error]

> I thought I had heard of Lala before.

Me too. And if TimeWarner is listening, I have a startup that needs funding. We're calling it Tinky Winky.

(cue piano music)

[jd]

Imagine there's no Lala,

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
And your lawyer's just begun
I hope someday you'll .torrent
And the world will be as one.

Re:(cue piano music)

[willyhill]

Completely offtopic here, but the other day I overheard the 14-year old daughter of a friend of mine remarking on what a beautiful song David Archuleta had written to sing in American Idol, and how he should have, like, totally won the competition if only for that.

I excused myself, went to the bathroom upstairs and laughed uncontrollably into a towel (to muffle the sound) for about five minutes.

Re:(cue piano music)

[AtariKee]

These are the kids that will be running the country soon. I would have suffocated myself.

Re:(cue piano music)

[exley]

Hey, give the kid the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she's unaware of the premise of American Idol, and furthermore she clearly doesn't know the song was written by someone else. This wouls show that she's ignorant of both TV and pop music, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Like, totally!

Re:(cue piano music)

[Wandering Wombat]

I would have vomited out of my eyeballs in anguish....

Still, that is freakin' funny. A 14 year old watching American Idol.... BWAHAHAHHA! Doesn't she know it's a kids show?

Re:(cue piano music)

[Anonymous Coward]

These are the kids that will be running the country soon. I would have suffocated myself.

Just think the kids running the country now said "George Michael isn't gay"

Re:(cue piano music)

[idonthack]

Next time, do them a favor and laugh in their face.

Re:(cue piano music)

[MerrickStar]

Don't forget she can also seemingly recognize good songwriting when she hears it, even if she doesn't know where it came from.

Re:(cue piano music)

[MadMidnightBomber]

You haven't really experienced "Imagine" until you've heard it in the original Klingon.

Renting isn't so bad

[steveha]

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.

No men without hats

[zakezuke]

But they have Men without Pants

It's called a jukebox

[ReverendLoki]

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.

Re:It's called a jukebox

[Martin Blank]

There's a difference between the jukebox at the diner (played for public consumption) and playback in one's home, car, bike, etc (played for private consumption). The intention is the differentiating factor: even if you can hear it outside the house, it's intended primarily for the people in the house, and therefore a private playback.

Re:It's called a jukebox

[Martin Blank]

I agree that the business model is poor. I won't do it (I buy most of my music as CDs), and I expect it to fail miserably. But comparing this to a jukebox isn't quite accurate, as the copyright laws covering the two situations are different.

Re:It's called a jukebox

[martin-boundary]

It's not *intention* that's the difference, it's *enforceability*. In general, people only pay for goods and services that they cannot or will not make for themselves.

If you're at a diner, then dragging in your own jukebox and playing from that is not possible, because the owners of the premise will object and throw you out. So you can't fill the airwaves with your own music at a diner, and paying for it on the diner's jukebox is the next best thing. But the crucial point is that the owners of the diner are able to enforce this restriction on you the customer.

If you're at home, then nobody can stop you from filling the airwaves of your house with music from your own jukebox (assuming it's not too loud etc), so you just do it, and you wouldn't dream of paying for the privilege.

Enforceability is the key with all those issues. Take the diner's owners. They might play whatever music they like in the diner for their customers without licensing the music, as you can easily do in your own home or car. But public premises can be entered by anybody, so it's easy for the local RIAA outfit to *enforce* the licensing requirement in this case - they just send someone to check up on the business.

So it's not really *intention* that matters, it's whether someone else can reasonably do something about it and will.

Re:It's called a jukebox

[jedidiah]

> Once this little community of misfits grows up and gets over the fact that they don't
> and should not have free and unlimited access to the work of others,

THAT is what copyright is all about.

THAT is what enabled current works to be created.

THAT is what will enable the cash cows of tomorrow to be created.

"Intellectual property" is not at all constructed like any other property. This is just a stupid clueless lie.

*laughs*

[OMNIpotusCOM]

I wish I had mod points for you two. For $0.10 apiece you can pretend I modded you up.

Re:*laughs*

[mrbluze]

I wish I had mod points for you two. For $0.10 apiece you can pretend I modded you up. Mod Point Rule #1: The Mod Point Fairy only gives you mod points when you don't want them.

Re:*laughs*

[NoobixCube]

It seems whenever I get mod points, Slashdot gets a whole week of nothing but interesting stories that I want to comment on (as opposed to the interesting stories I don't want to comment on...). I have nine points right now, and there are so many comments I want to mod up, but I commented early in the thread.

Potential for Problems

[DaMattster]

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.

Cracking the "DRM"

[Captain Perspicuous]

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

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? :-D

Re:Cracking the "DRM"

[rts008]

The 'Download Helper' extension for Firefox works just fine. The playback in VLC (on Kubuntu 8.04) was just peachy.

Re:Cracking the "DRM"

[shoemilk]

I know you probably posted this before the AC, but scroll up. An AC wrote you a perl script to do it

Only a dime?

[AnotherBlackHat]

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.

Do it the old school way

[Serenissima]

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.

Re:Do it the old school way

[SanityInAnarchy]

10 cents for a now double-encoded (generational loss) lossy recording? Consider, also, that this is probably illegal, or against the TOS -- may as well get a torrent of flacs instead.

Re:Do it the old school way

[Lehk228]

who gives a shit about illegal, torrents will get you busted, nobody can bust you for doing a loopback recording

Actually...

[TheSHAD0W]

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.

If the first time is free, so is every other time

[Tango42]

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!

How about telling the MIDDLEMEN to get out of it?

[WillAffleckUW]

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.

Re:Mod point fairy

[OMNIpotusCOM]

True, but at this point who hasn't gone into their settings to completely ignore overrated, redundant and off-topic anyway? I just got hit with redundant for talking about CowboyNeal's taint on another story. If CowboyNeal's taint is redundant... actually... I guess that would explain a couple things. Nevermind.

Re:Lets see...

[Darkness404]

No, you can't download anything from this service nor last.fm or pandora, however as with all analoge streams you can rip them using hardware or you can rip them using Audacity or a similar program.

this might works for many people

[fermion]

If this is a web interface, and a user can log in from any computer, then there is no problem.

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.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Zis is verry funny!

[antek9]

Def.: the Slashdot Effect: Look here, a secret URL I just found, but shhh, don't go there and don't tell anyone!

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?

Re:Zis is verry funny!

[Anonymous Coward]

Irony is nerds not being able to spell.

The only irony here would be if the one nerd who understood the meaning of irony went to correct your use of the word but wasn't allowed to because of an ip ban caused by a flamewar he started over the correct definition of the word "irony". I think the word you were looking for is "reality".

Unless the guy who had posted the misspelling was named "SpellingMasterNerd" in which case it could be ironic.

Re:Zis is verry funny!

[nitehawk214]

Def.: the Slashdot Effect: Look here, a secret URL I just found, but shhh, don't go there and don't tell anyone!

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?

c.) Free marketing.

Re:Zis is verry funny!

[cjb658]

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. Click Here!

Re:Zis is verry funny!

[Opportunist]

Oh c'mon, do you have to spit into the soup? That site will never have that much traffic in its lifetime again.

Re:Mod point fairy

[mrbluze]

I just got hit with redundant for talking about CowboyNeal's taint on another story. I would mod you up as underrated but mod fairy rule #1 applies.

Re:Do it the old school way - Quality may be bad

[SpaceLifeForm]

From the site:

You can buy DRM-free MP3s for your iPod or other portable device for just 79 more

mod parent up

[globaljustin]

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 ;)

Another kind of slashdot effect

[Attaturk]

I believe this "submission" a way to get people on the site so that lala can tell their investors "We had 1 million hits within one day of launch."

Slashdot fell for it and is now giving a never heard of site massive traffic which will appear positive to investors.

You're quite right. But on the upside Slashdot also hacked the proposed service within minutes, after tearing the idea to pieces. Hopefully this might also tell the investors something about the company's business model and its viability. Even if a wee hack like that one isn't immediately obvious, plenty of people have pointed out that there's a speaker jack in your computer. Plug it in to anything from an ancient cassette recorder up to a modern mulitmedia PC and you can just record it with one button press or click. Surely even 'analysts' can see that. Daft idea. Daft business model. Protecting content - especially 'small content' such as songs or low def video - is a mug's game in this day and age.

Not True at all.

[montulli]

$.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

Look at the site, ignore Robertson.

[markalot]

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.

Re:Look at the site, ignore Robertson.

[WK2]

That can't be. It's reasonable, but involves one of the Big Four record labels.

Re:Look at the site, ignore Robertson.

[jgc7]

Songza?

Re:Look at the site, ignore Robertson.

[pthor1231]

I wish I had mod points to push this post up, but for other people browsing lower, this is directly from the Songza "About Us" Section:

Do the artists get paid? Is it legal? Yes. Songza pays for licenses from all the major performing-rights organizations (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC), who then pay the publishers and writers in proportion to the number of plays they get on Songza.

This seems like a legal alternative to paying for online access to music, but who knows if it will last etc. As an aside, the black / yellow on red combo makes me want to stab my eyes out. This is the UI of a supposed brainchild of UI? The only cool UI thing is the menu that pops up when you click, but otherwise the site is fairly ugly. Elegant UI my ass.

Re:Look at the site, ignore Robertson.

[Phroggy]

They're willing to try anything if there's a chance it'll break Apple's monopoly.

Re:Look at the site, ignore Robertson.

[gsslay]

Sounds like a very reasonable way of promoting and selling music. You get to hear a song as much as you like for 10 cents, if you like it enough you get to take it away, DRM free, for another 79 cents.

Of course, this is just the kind of marketing that kdawson doesn't want to hear about. Much easier to continue whining about the nasty record companies not giving customers what they want, and forcing people to file share.

Re:Look at the site, ignore Robertson.

[porcupine8]

10 cents would be a perfectly acceptable price - if imeem weren't already offering the same service for FREE.

It's a goofy concept, but they do have DRM-free.

[Anonymous Freak]

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"...)

Mr Robertson is himself a huge problem

[John Jamieson]

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)

Re:Mr Robertson is himself a huge problem

[billcopc]

Yeah you hit the nail in the head. Michael Robertson did one good thing years ago, that was to found MP3.com. Then he proceeded to destroy it. That was enough to make me hate him, but of course he had to continue ruining everything he touched.

Linspire ? joke.
SIPphone ? stillborn.
MP3tunes ? *crickets*

There's one thing music people hate: sellout, and this guy is the king of selling out. He's just a dollar sign with a big, arrogant mouth.

Re:Mr Robertson is himself a huge problem

[RKBA]

> "What can I do to get these unrepentant spammers off my back? Does anyone have any ideas?"

Sure, just use a Spamex.com email address instead of your "real" email address. The beauty of Spamex is that you get a virtually unlimited number of email addresses that you can create as needed, and that you can also disable or delete with the click of your mouse; which is what I usually do whenever any Spam is sent to one of my Spamex email address. This won't do any good for the Spammers who already have your "real" email address, but it will halt the problem in it's tracks in the future if you use a disposable Spamex email address for everything. I believe there are other similar services as Spamex, but I haven't tried them because I'm perfectly happy with Spamex but maybe others could recommend alternatives to Spamex.

One other interesting thing I've found is that Spamex email addresses very rarely get Spammed. I think that's probably because Spamex email addresses are deleted from Spammers databases because they know that the Spamex email address will probably be disabled after the first Spam email is received, so they simply don't bother.

Re:Mod point fairy

[OMNIpotusCOM]

I actually just have my base set so low so that I can read almost everything, so maybe you can't ignore overrated. I figured out pretty early on that there's so few posts that are actually trolls and flamebait that it's not even worth ignoring them. Nope, the mods mostly just use their points to get back at you for something, to try to squelch you out of view because they don't agree with what you have to say, or can't rub two words together to save their life and mod down is how they argue. Often times it's the modded down posts that are worth reading.

The only reason I'm posting this is because I actually enjoy watching people bicker over what rating my posts deserve. My first one has gone from -1 to 5 in the span of an hour or so, and my others have gone from funny to troll... it's just amazing to watch when you have very little else to do =)

OT, but...

[Weaselmancer]

Especially when I still get phone calls from former employers about code written 10 years ago (irregardless or if I wrote it), and they expect answers for free

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.

The math of a mediocre band is hideous

[patio11]

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!)

Re:You need to keep reading

[JeremyBanks]

This article is unclear to the extent of bias. I've been trying out the service (you get 50 online song credits when you register) and it actually seems really neat. A DRM-free store is always good and the additional features are nice. You can listen to a song as many times as you want. I can also listen to any song online that I've already got a copy of on my computer (if you true them enough to download and run their app). I don't see what all of the hate is about.

Re:You need to keep reading

[Seraphim1982]

If you don't pay anything, you can play a song once in full, and as many times as you want as a 30 second clip.
If you do pay that 10 cents, you can play the song as many times as you want in full.

I'm not sure why you found that so confusing. The article was pretty clear about it.

but...

[JustNiz]

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.

Limitations

[Quixote]

Some red flags from the TOS :

• Content . . . may be synched to no more than five (5) la la-authorized portable devices at any one time.
  Only 5?
• 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")
  Wait: I thought the stuff you bought was DRM-free ??
• You can upload your music to their service; but there's a catch:
  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.
• 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.
  o_O

No thanks... I'll pass!

Ssshhh! Don't tell them about "What U Hear"

[Joce640k]

Select "What U Hear" in my sound card settings means I can record whatever I'm listening to.

Free music!

Re:You need to keep reading

[porcupine8]

Is it any better than imeem, which offers essentially the same service for free? The one issue with imeem is that it can be hard to navigate and find what you want - it's no iTMS.