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Legal Music Downloads Increase in 2005
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Jul 13, 2005 10:25 PM
from the still-missing-napster dept.
from the still-missing-napster dept.
GraWil writes "The CBC is reporting there is marked increase in legal music downloads in 2005. American internet users downloaded 158 million individual songs from January to June 2005, compared with 55 million during the same period in 2004; during the same period, U.S. CD sales decreased by 7%. According to Peter Jamieson, head of the British Phonographic Industry, "the record industry has enthusiastically embraced the new legal download services ... and now we're beginning to reap the rewards". In the UK, sales of seven-inch vinyl singles were also up 87% on last year."
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RIAA's response.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:RIAA's response.. (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:RIAA's response.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Nope...it is not. All that is currently offered, is lossy recorded material. I'd love to buy stuff online, but, until they offer a lossless version of the music, that gives me the same abilities as I have when I buy a CD :to play on any player, and to rip to lossy formats on my own choice for poor listening environments (car, portable for gym)...then, I'm not interested.
Actually, the main reason I've not bought many CD's in recent history...I've pretty much got them all now!! I also find very little new music coming out that I find worth buying.
Parent
Trustworthy tracking (Score:5, Insightful)
I bet you the illegal music traffic tripled as well.
If I had the time I could probably prove that broadband connections increased in number, prices fell, newer technologies connected more people, etc...
This is a piece of not-so-well crafted corporate propaganda.
Re:Trustworthy tracking (Score:4, Informative)
Nothing was said about illegal downloads, the article was about how many legal downloads there were, which they do know.
Parent
Re:Trustworthy tracking (Score:4, Insightful)
Do they? There's plenty of music that's not under the purview of the RIAA. If they're measuring by sales, then their methods are about as reliable as those who measure software popularity by sales in a world where open source is growing by leaps and bounds. Anyone who has installed a dozen or more legal copies of Fedora or Debian from a single CD knows how silly that notion is. And the amount of legally redistributable music out there is many orders of magnitude larger than the amount of free/open source software. The fully legal Etree torrent site [etree.org] is reportedly moving Petabytes on a regular basis.
(But your point that the article was not about illegal downloads remains valid.)
Parent
Re:Trustworthy tracking (Score:5, Insightful)
A) It's convenient.
B) They know its legal so they don't have to worry about it
C) The catalogs and prices are getting friendly enough.
There will *always* be piracy. The idea is to make the legitimate methods more attractive and less hassle and the record companies are slowly succeeding. Now just imagine if they had listened to all of us and done this years ago when they should have instead of suing everyone. They'd probably be in far better shape.
Parent
Re:Trustworthy tracking (Score:3, Insightful)
Make the music available with complete information on where to find it - ID3 tags in MP3 files are ideal for this. Then as the file is circulated through the grey market, people will see the URL to your legal music download site and go, "gee, I wonder if they have anything else I like?"
I contend that people truly desire to help the art
The hell they have... (Score:5, Insightful)
Only because they were dragged kicking and screaming into it. They have done EVERYTHING in their power to prevent even the LEGAL downloading of material. In addition, they have used their might to stop or at least slow down acceptance of new media devices. I need only point to such debacles as:
- The Cassette tape
- The DAT/Cassette DAT
- The CD-R
- The digital MP3 player (remember when they tried to stop those?)
- The Napster ruling
- Internet Radio
Etc... In short, they hate any technology they do not have 110% control over. If the music industry thought they could charge by the minute, they would.
Parent
This article fails to mention... (Score:4, Funny)
On other hand (Score:2, Funny)
Re:This article fails to mention... (Score:3, Insightful)
If someone wants to put together an affordable subscription service with a client for Mac that has the same selection as Rhapsody or i
Re:This article fails to mention... (Score:3, Insightful)
I would agree with the second. As for the first it is a situation of how you listen to music. I myself buy less then 9 songs a month, so in my case iTunes is more affordable. I like the fact that there are different types of paying for music subscription vs per song. It allows the consumer to decide what is best for them based on their buying habits.
Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought it would be crazy for me to keep the subscription service for more than 2 weeks. To my surprise, I am listening to new stuff every day for the 6 months. Subscription still going unbelievably strong. That's like $120 spent on music... I know I wouldn't buy 12 CDs in 1 year. My only worry is that I run out of stuff to listen to eventually.
Parent
Re:Of course (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Of course (Score:3, Insightful)
The popularity of illegal music sites was a clear example of how many consumers loved the idea of downloading digital music.
I suppose they didn't like the idea of downloading analog music very much.
Take 2:
The popularity of illegal music sites was a clear example of how many consumers loved the idea of downloading free music.
Take 3:
Most people didn't do it to cheat artists, they did it because they had no choice.
Of course, "downloading" the music directly from a CD was simply too hard.
Seri
Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
I know you were joking, but "downloading digital music" is about more than just being able to listen on your PC or your iPod - ripping tracks from a CD is no substitute. It means being able to hear any song instantly. If your friend sends you an IM saying "check out this song by band X", a minute later you can be hearing it, looking up related bands, and listening to their tracks too.
To do that with CDs, you'd have to (1) live at the record store, and (2) run back and forth between the shelves and listening stations, trying everyone's patience, if the store even has stations where you can listen to all the CDs they sell.
Parent
Re:Of course (Score:3, Insightful)
I was gonna mod, but I'll post instead.
When the GP said Most people didn't do it to cheat artists, they did it because they had no choice, the first thing I thought of is that it can be pretty hard to find music that I like where I live.
Searching for music and buying it online is much more convenient, and buying only the tracks I like makes so much more sense.
Re:Of course (Score:3, Interesting)
It depends on what type of music you like of course but I want whole albums. I also want physical media. If nothing else, physical media has second hand value.
and the UK reports (Score:3, Funny)
I guess the natural connection between downloadable music and 45 RPMs has finally been realized in the United Kingdom.
Huh??
Re:and the UK reports (Score:2)
as i said above, this is a piece of awfully crafted corporate propaganda.
"ok our music sales are great because bananas are selling well in the UK and although we have no clue how many illegal downloads there were in torrent, soulseek and 200 other networks we still concluded that our sales are doing great, thank you"
Hm.. (Score:2, Funny)
Gotta rehash own brain... read the above as According to Peter Jamieson, head of the British Pornographic Industry
Re:Hm.. (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Hm.. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
It's called ease of use. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not because people have a great amount of respect for the law, but because we have a great amount of respect for the easy.
It's called FREE. (Score:2, Insightful)
Also people are known to like not having to pay.
Re:It's called FREE. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It's called FREE. (Score:3, Insightful)
Seconded (Score:5, Insightful)
I never saw it that way. I always thought that the convenience and the speed with which I could acquire the album more than made up for not getting the CD, and not having a perfect, pristine copy. I had a Paypal balance a number of months back, and debated using it on Ebay, to acquire several albums, or on iTunes to do the same. I chose iTunes - even though I might have been able to get more albums, plus liner notes & the original CDs, through eBay. Why did I choose iTunes? Because I wanted the songs on my iPod that day.
Parent
Analogizing the debate... (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing to realize is that both sides not only believe they are working towards the greater good but are objectively doing so even with radically different and diametrically opposed 'solutions' to the problem.
It really puts things in perspective to realize not only that each side is right but that there is more to be gained for each to sit down and figure out what to do with the deer in the forest rather than constantly fighting over territory and methodology.
Re:Analogizing the debate... (Score:2, Interesting)
did i just hear a moo? (Score:2, Insightful)
Now if they would only do this for TV shows... (Score:4, Insightful)
Easy? (Score:4, Interesting)
The catalog is incomplete, to really replace Limewire, it has to offer ALL of the songs I want. That includes some pretty obscure songs. Basically, my personal library is 1,500 songs or so off of Limewire. Napster's whole library seems to show about 750,000 songs. The legal library is 500 times the size of my own, but I don't like one in every 500 songs, probably only 1 in 1,000, if that, so there are huge gaps.
DRM sucks. It basically turns digital music into something that can only be effectively used while sitting right in front of the computer. I want a standard format (MP3) that I can burn to standard audio CDS, use on my Rio MP3 player, and burn to data discs that will work in an mp3 cd player, or my set top dvd player. DRM makes much of this impractical. Of course there is the argument that everybody would just steal the MP3's provided by the service. But why bother. If they cost $1 each, and I could do whatever I wanted with them, and they were good quality, not to mention legal. I wouldn't hesitate to skip the Limewire hassle and just by directly from them.
And where in the hell is the quality that was supposed to be associated with the pay services. What is stopping Napster from offering up the songs at 512k instead of the paltry 128 that they seem to be using now (yeah, wma makes a difference, but I still want bigger files). I would be happy spending even $2 per song for 512 DRMless MP3's that are legal. Instead, the stuff Napster sells sounds the exact same as the MP3's that came off of Napster 1. Not what I was expecting. I want 14mb downloads at 5mbps+/second, and why not, except for the size I can get everything else off of Limewire.
Further, I have to boot into Windows to use Napster or itunes (not counting pymusique). I don't like doing that, and I really can't play drm'd wmas under linux.
Limewire is still the best option. It's fast for a Java Application, it runs on anything with a virtual machine, can easily max out my download bandwidth, and I can use the files however I want. Of course, most of the files aren't legal, but the legal files can't do what I want so what good are they?
great... (Score:4, Informative)
I'd really love to be into this "legal" download sensation but noone will sell to me (and if it doesn't work on my pod I'm not interested).
Some people don't want to be happy (Score:5, Insightful)
There are people who read news like this who are encouraged that market is beginning to respond (as markets always do) and there are people who read this news and get grumpy because it just got a little bit more difficult to continue to rationalize their greedy piracy.
How did you react?
Re:Some people don't want to be happy (Score:3, Insightful)
T
I'll take CDs thanks (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:want quality? then buy vinyl (Score:4, Interesting)
Hey, I tease.
But seriously... Nyquist and all that."
Nyquist and all that? All that the Nyquist theorem says on the subject is that a sampling audio system like PCM should, in theory, be able to reproduce signals with frequencies up to 1/2 of the sampling rate faithfully. But in the real world, there are at least two problems with that:
1) The low-pass filters used on the signal path are physical devices, not theoretical concepts. As such, they can't be absolutely perfect... they introduce phase distortions and begin attenuating at frequencies somewhat lower than 1/2 Fs.
2) Even if the filters were "perfect" (not attenuating or introducing phase distortion until 1/2 Fs, at which point the attenuation becomes infinite)... well, the jury is still out on whether 22050hz (the theoretical upper bound given the 44.1khz sampling rate of CDs) is really high enough. There's some evidence to suggest that even if we can't "hear" frequencies above 22.050khz, they can have an effect on the way we perceive lower frequencies that we can hear.
Just to be fair to both sides of the argument though...
"CDs are still far worse sounding than vinyl."
To return to the digital downloads aspect of the article a bit though... I have to completely agree with the poster who shuns download services for poor quality. The only times I've extensively used iTunes were the Pepsi free song promotions, and if I found any songs I really really liked... well I went on Amazon or to my local record store and sought out the CDs to re-rip as DRM-free Apple Lossless. Better sound quality and the ability to use the format of my choice will make CDs the clear winner in my book for a long time to come.
-Frank
Parent
You are kidding! (Score:3, Funny)
More like:
"the record industry was lead by the balls kicking and screaming into download services...and now we're beginning to rape the rewards"
In related news . . . (Score:3, Informative)
My experiences purchasing and downloading mp3s (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess calling them "music" downloading services is more accurate, because iTunes distributes songs in the mpeg4 format (I'm guessing only the iPod can play mpeg4's, because my MuVo mp3 player won't). Other annoyances include a circa 20 mg application I had to download and install just to have the privilege to shop at iTunes, the rather weak selection (I was looking for tracks off the new Seether album "Karma and Effect", which they didn't have) and lastly the
Napster is so friggin' annoying, from the splash page to the pathetic selection (unless you like rap like R. Kelly *gag*) that I had to bail. They too didn't have any of the tracks I was looking for.
Happily, AllOfMp3.com [allofmp3.com] did have all the tracks I wanted, and each track costs about 12 to 20 cents! This is by far the best deal I could find. The "catch" is you have to commit $10 from your credit card, but I easily got more than an album's worth of music I really wanted, and I'll continue to shop there for all my fist raising, head banging needs. The interface was simple enough to navigate (could be streamlined more, but I'm nit-picking) and I was able to download in mp3 format at various levels of quality. Highly configurable. IMHO, it's the best music download service on the internet.
Re:My experiences purchasing and downloading mp3s (Score:5, Insightful)
But it's legality is quite [msn.com] dubious [techlawadvisor.com]and the RIAA has had a couple of goes at it. At the moment it lives in a loophole [museekster.com] of the russian copyright system that is unlikely to be closed - those russians have bigger problems to deal with first.
So I guess it depends on how squeeky clean do you want to be???
Parent
The true tragedy behind all this (Score:3, Funny)
Ha! (Score:3, Insightful)
That one made me laugh. I'm not sure which is the funnier word, enthusiastically or embraced.
Nice try making it look as if the industry was the one which ushered in the age of downloadable music. They did everything to stop it and when it steamrolled them over, they 'accepted' it and made it look like it was their creation.
I wish I could warp to another universe, Trance Gemini style, where there was no napster, no kazaa and no BT and look at how enthusiastically they had embraced it there.
Re:what? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:what? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What will happen to the album? (Score:3, Insightful)
Please don't make generalisations like this. This all depends on the type of music you listen to and the way you treat music.
I listen to a lot of fringe hard rock that gets no airplay here in the UK. It used to be I had to buy an album on "trust" simply by reading magazine reviews and just taking a risk - most of the time I got albums that had only 1 or 2 good tracks on them.
Nowadays, I download t