Slashdot Mirror
SanDisk, Music Publishers Push DRM-free SlotMusic Format
Strudelkugel writes "The LA Times and others are reporting the music industry is working with SanDisk to try unrestricted music files on microSD memory cards to improve sales of physical media: 'In addition to music, the slotMusic cards will come pre-loaded with other things, such as liner notes, album-cover artwork and sometimes video.' The important part: 'The music on slotMusic comes without copyright protection, so it can be used on almost all computers, mobile phones and music players — but it won't play on an iPod, which doesn't have a micro-SD memory slot. It has one gigabyte of memory, and the music tracks are played back at high quality.' Could it be the labels have finally recognized that providing features and convenience to customers is preferable to suing them?" Most computers also don't have microSD slots; according to EMI's press release, there will be a "tiny USB sleeve" packaged with each card, and the "high quality" format means up to 320kbps MP3. From the given description, it seems like it would be no harder to transfer the tracks to an iPod (via a computer) than to most other players.
I don't want a memory stick containing lossy 320kbit songs, I can get that easily enough off the CD (they are still giving you a real CD, right?).
Why not include a 24-bit 192 or 96 khz lossless format, and maybe something in 5.1 instead? DVD-Audio and SACD didn't take off because no one adopted the players, but it might take off if you made it easily playable. I might even pay a slight premium.
Ok, let me get this straight. No copy protection so it will play on anything, but it won't play on iPods because they don't have a SD slot? WTF?! If there's no copy protection, then you put the songs on your computer and then sync them to the iPod. I love how these sorts of articles are written when the person writing them has never used a computer before.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
But the biggest problem, he said, may be that Apple's iTunes and other download services have made customers used to buying a song at a time, not an album, and making their own compilations.
The horror! Now we don't have to pay for the album fillers that comes with the one song that we want?
Great. More crap to throw out. Isn't one of the big selling features of digital distribution that it produces less crap to landfill?
You can put the music *directly* into a non-apple player which supports MicroSD (or any other one that accepts cards, via an adapter).
To put it on an iPod, you would need to involve a PC. Part of the point of packing the files on an SD card in the first place is to avoid the annoying PC requirement. If you have to use a PC every time, you almost may as well buy a CD.
I don't get it. What's the difference between slotMusic and a read-only microSD card with a bunch of MP3 files on it?
I'm not sure if I'm real.
No copyright protection? So they are only releasing music that is in the public domain!?
Or did the newspaper screw up, and mean to write "no copy protection"?
That's pioneering? I didn't think we'd quite gotten to the point where a DRM-free CD was the exception rather than the rule...
Kudos to EMI for doing something digital without DRM, but how is this better than what Amazon.com offers us now?
I can download DRM-free songs from Amazon for less than a buck, and albums at about $8. Windows Media Player downloads the album art, and a plug-in gets me lyrics. I can transfer the song to other devices, friends, or burn to CD. Amazon's library is HUGE.
And internet distribution doesn't impact the environment.
About the only advantage I see to this is the "up to 320k", whereas Amazon's are 160k I believe. But, I don't think I'd be able to tell the difference.
Physical distribution is dead. If they want to cater to impulse buyers at a retailer, install a kiosk with a variety of ports, card readers, BlueTooth, etc and let people download stuff instantly.
-David
what an ignorant generalization.
concept of marginal returns also apply to quality of music. buy a crappy pair of speakers, buy a crappy cable, you get crap out of your set. buy good speakers and cable, and a good set, you get good quality. the point beyond where marginal returns start declining steeply in regard to quality-price, is the point for luxury - minimal returns, huge cash.
its the same with sports cars. a honda sports car is good and acceptably priced. and it can satisfy any enthusiast. a porche on the other hand, may give comparably less increase in performance and satisfaction, but much more expensive. still there are those who buy porches.
simple as that.
Read radical news here
Am I thinking about the same micro-SD as everyone else? Smaller than my little finger nail?
It's small enough to get lost in your pocket, sucked up by a vacuum cleaner or whatever. They're also fiddly to handle: can you imagine picking through your album collection with a pair of tweezers, squinting at the 3mm x 5mm labels to find the one you're after?
It seems a bizzarre choice for a portable music medium. If they're not intended for carrying around but supposed to be used only once, to get the music onto your player/computer, why not just sell the download?
Smaller size ? smaller than CD means no packaging, no physical album art, easier to lose...
Doesn't sound like an advantage (consumer side)
Most of us still buy physical medias (aka CDs et al) precisely because you get those things.
This might be the surest way to have even die-hards go all digital download.
This physical media dead horse really is starting to stink.
--- Back to the trees, back to the trees !
In addition to music, the slotMusic cards will come pre-loaded with other things, such as liner notes, album-cover artwork and sometimes video
And advertisements, rootkits, DRM schemes, spyware ...
Why is it every keydisk manufacturer thinks I want their crappy software to run every time I put a disk in the USB slot ? Sick of this nonsense, meaning your 2GB memory is actually only 1.8GB plus some non removable crap, and not one but 2 drive letters to deal with :-(
conclusion : positioning is not only unimportant, but also deteriorating to the sound quality after 2.1 (or stereo), because noone ever sits in the middle of an orchestra or a rock band while listening to music.
Only because they *can't* sit in the middle of a rock-band while listening to music. It's just not practical to do so, particularly in a crowd of more than five people.
Given that it *is* practical to have more than two/three audio channels, and that human ears are able to sense direction in more than left to right (ever seen someone look behind them when there's a loud bang?), why not have more than two/three channels?
Directional audio certainly enhances a film, there's no reason it can't enhance music either.
For the sake of completeness, while humans only have two raw audio-in channels, they can hear things in a vague sound-sphere because of our mental processing and head related transfer functions. This is very much human-dependent and fairly difficult to emulate, and isn't done in most recordings. Greater than two channel sound is generally best we've currently got access to with most consumer level hardware.
Because the audiophile world is even more based on pseudoscience than is the alternative medicine world.