The plugins are quite a bit different from what was possible with Winamp. They're really meant to build services into the app, so they have access to the playlist engine, etc, rather than the audio stream.
To be honest I'm not sure how the price will change. If you buy at $4.99 for a year now, you're guaranteed a year at that price. Some outlets are reporting a likely surcharge for portability eventually. Not sure.
We're certainly not the fastest in every way, but with a well-written 6MB download-size, no MFC, ATL, or GDI+, we're not bloated, either. For an app that does what we do, the performance is quite good. For the most part we're bound by the network and the DLLs we work with, not the speed of the app.
Hey thanks. I didn't realize you had to login to see my blog post. That's pretty lame. I have it set to view by "everyone". Guess that means "everyone with a Yahoo! login". Thanks for posting. Spread it as far as you'd like.
ian
Hey all, I've worked with Beastie Boys since 1994 or so (used to run their web site once upon a time, did a couple of tours with them) and have been following this matter. See my reply to Cory's original Boing Boing post:
Someone please tell me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the copy protection is *only* on non-US and non-UK discs. I also believe that this protection is "EMI policy", and nothing specific to Beastie Boys' disc.
I can tell you for a FACT that Beastie Boys didn't want this and fought against it, but lost this battle with their label.
We encourage you to buy a non-protected US or UK disc. We understand that in today's world Slashdotters are going to do whatever it is they usually do to get music, and this post isn't going to change that. But when we've done so much progressive work in this space over the last 10 years it sucks to see a Slashdot post claiming we're "Evil".
As IUMA proved in '93, there are *not* a bunch of unsigned bands worth listening to. In fact, most *signed* bands are not worth listening to.
I still remember sitting in the basement of the CS building at IU downloading all the MP2s from IUMA and at the end of the day going, "Um, well, it's an incredible idea, levelling the playing field for music, but I've just wasted 3 hours and haven't heard a single song I like."
Same goes for MP3.com. Browse the top 100 of any of their charts. It all sucks. Bad.
The industry needs more/better A&R/artist development, not less. That is, I'd prefer to see the music industry return to the days when they actually took the time to develop artists rather than looking for the hits and moving on. But that's another topic altogether...
The real answer is to continue to look for labels run by people who love music (that pretty much knocks out all of the majors) and support them like they're your offspring. Buddyhead.com, Dischord.com, DragCity.com, FatPossom.com...there are lots of people still making music because they love it. Support them.
And if you happen to stumble across an unsigned band on MP3.com or IUMA that's way better than anything you've heard in the mainstream, alert the authorities. It's still never happened to me.
ian
Slashdot Mirror
http://ymusicblog.com/blog/2006/02/25/dave-goldber g-to-record-labels-no-drm-please/
ian
We sold it to Y!.
ian
Hi Rob.
The plugins are quite a bit different from what was possible with Winamp. They're really meant to build services into the app, so they have access to the playlist engine, etc, rather than the audio stream.
To be honest I'm not sure how the price will change. If you buy at $4.99 for a year now, you're guaranteed a year at that price. Some outlets are reporting a likely surcharge for portability eventually. Not sure.
We're certainly not the fastest in every way, but with a well-written 6MB download-size, no MFC, ATL, or GDI+, we're not bloated, either. For an app that does what we do, the performance is quite good. For the most part we're bound by the network and the DLLs we work with, not the speed of the app.
ian
http://www.fistfulayen.com/
ian
http://www.fistfulayen.com/
ian
Hey thanks. I didn't realize you had to login to see my blog post. That's pretty lame. I have it set to view by "everyone". Guess that means "everyone with a Yahoo! login". Thanks for posting. Spread it as far as you'd like. ian
http://boingboing.net/2004/06/11/new_beasties_disc _ha.html
Someone please tell me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the copy protection is *only* on non-US and non-UK discs. I also believe that this protection is "EMI policy", and nothing specific to Beastie Boys' disc.
I can tell you for a FACT that Beastie Boys didn't want this and fought against it, but lost this battle with their label.
We encourage you to buy a non-protected US or UK disc. We understand that in today's world Slashdotters are going to do whatever it is they usually do to get music, and this post isn't going to change that. But when we've done so much progressive work in this space over the last 10 years it sucks to see a Slashdot post claiming we're "Evil".
See you at the live shows, ian
As IUMA proved in '93, there are *not* a bunch of unsigned bands worth listening to. In fact, most *signed* bands are not worth listening to. I still remember sitting in the basement of the CS building at IU downloading all the MP2s from IUMA and at the end of the day going, "Um, well, it's an incredible idea, levelling the playing field for music, but I've just wasted 3 hours and haven't heard a single song I like." Same goes for MP3.com. Browse the top 100 of any of their charts. It all sucks. Bad. The industry needs more/better A&R/artist development, not less. That is, I'd prefer to see the music industry return to the days when they actually took the time to develop artists rather than looking for the hits and moving on. But that's another topic altogether... The real answer is to continue to look for labels run by people who love music (that pretty much knocks out all of the majors) and support them like they're your offspring. Buddyhead.com, Dischord.com, DragCity.com, FatPossom.com...there are lots of people still making music because they love it. Support them. And if you happen to stumble across an unsigned band on MP3.com or IUMA that's way better than anything you've heard in the mainstream, alert the authorities. It's still never happened to me. ian