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Labels Agree On Free Music Downloads To Cell Phones
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Feb 12, 2008 09:41 PM
from the free-as-in-bundled dept.
from the free-as-in-bundled dept.
An anonymous reader writes "CNet's Crave reports on a potentially revolutionary digital music service set to launch worldwide later this year. It's offering free, unlimited over-the-air downloads to cell phones, with music from all four major record labels, with no subscription. And the selections that users download get automatically downloaded to their PC or Mac. Rather obviously, the tracks are DRMed, but unlike the similar Nokia service unveiled last year to much disappointment, this MusicStation Max service will have exclusive handsets from LG and no additional fees to customers. This is a little similar to an idea talked about last year, but with all four majors on-board it seems to have greater potential."
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Universal and Sony Plan "Free" Music Service 98 comments
Damon Tog writes "Macworld reports that Universal Music Group has enlisted the help of Sony to join forces in a new music service. The price of the subscription is expected to be built-in to the cost of digital music players, leaving the music 'free' to the consumer. 'The plan is still in flux and faces several hurdles, BusinessWeek notes. Among them is finding a business model that allows the hardware makers to subsidize the cost of the music. In addition, the labels have tried to develop their own online music services before without success.'"
Submission: Major labels agree on free over-the-air downloads by Anonymous Coward
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They still don't get it! (Score:4, Informative)
They still don't get it! Do I say more?
Not Free (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:They still don't get it! (Score:4, Insightful)
In a free market competition drives cheaper prices. Intellectual monopoly products have no competition apart from the yarrr mateys. Prevent copying (or any form of competition) and you get more expensive, not cheaper, music.
So, no, DRM is never beneficial.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They still be full of DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
ooops, there, I yawned.
Did I hear someone just call them fucking idiots?
Re: (Score:2)
You're right, in everyday use, this announcement means very little. However, I see it as a social worker might see a drug addict. The addict has stopped using cocaine, but still uses acid and meth almost daily. It's a small sign of growth that could come later.
I would accept DRM'd music on my phone if I the ability to dow
Godwin's Law... can't help myself here (Score:2)
Yeah, yeah, I know it's a real stretch to compare the two, but I'm still waiting to see what the penalties are that come with use of the device/service. A gilded cage is still a cage.
Well (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Well (Score:4, Funny)
The announcement if by the lables, not the RIAA. In other news, The RIAA to sue all four lables for making avaliable songs.
Parent
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Why buy music now? (Score:2, Funny)
What's the business model for the record labels?
Re:Why buy music now? (Score:5, Informative)
And it's not like you can put them on your iPod. If you want to use them on the computer, you'll need to use an approved player. Which I'm sure will be *fantastic*, the best *ever*!
Parent
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It's funny but that's not what I call free. What's wrong with people? How can you even consider this free? It's a service.
I was excited... (Score:5, Insightful)
And hell, it's *NOT REALLY FREE*. You need a special contract. Oh yeah. Sure, each track is free, but you're still paying a premium for it. I don't mind that, but it's a bit misleading. Not that I'm surprised.
They haven't even said which player will be able to play the files. It looks like Windows Media Player is a contender.
All-in-all, not impressed.
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Won't download for free (Score:2)
Keep it (Score:2, Redundant)
Keep your DRM music. I don't want it and I don't want to get hooked on your free sample. (One day I may change phones and I'll still want that music). Nice try though.
Nothing Free here, move along please... (Score:4, Insightful)
Limited songs on limited phones with limited transfer on limited equipment....
Have it right now MP3, BitTorrent, Piratebay and my WiFi enabled smartphone...
This just in! (Score:5, Funny)
Music companies just found another tech company to take a bajillion dollars to promise them that sweet, sweet DRM.
How many times does that make now? I can think of no better evidence that cocaine makes you dumb.
It's not a bad model ...BUT (Score:5, Interesting)
This actually isn't that different from the software model, pre-Microsoft. Software was ultimately bundled in with the hardware and service contract costs and so everyone could just sorta of copy software all over the place. Heck, Microsoft owes a lot of its success to this sort of model for Windows largely due to its lack of DRM. If Microsoft required the sort of authentication with DOS and Windows 3.1 that it requires for Vista, it is very doubtful they would be in the dominant position they are in today. DOS used to be $10!!!
Of course, this bundling sucks for Linux and completely free software, but one could envision a distro actually having a service plan with it for DRM content. If you throw in a few extra bucks, the content plan could actually be used to help fund further Linux development. Thus, tacking a few bucks onto teeny boppers wanting to get the latest Hannah Montana on a Linux box could actually be used to help pay for things like additional FireFox, Open Office and other Linux core applications development.
The one thing that really hurts the credibility of the music industry, aside from the obvious and vile thuggishness with which RIAA presses its claims, is that, the artist's share of the proceeds is rather small. In the CD / Vinyl days, a large cut for the industry was reasonable because of all the people that the business needed to pay to make physical copies. Now, with electronic distribution, there's really no moral reason why the artist can't get a larger piece of the pie. But as we have seen with the writer's strike, it seems that the content industry isn't really interested in promoting, well, the truly gifted people that make content, but rather, exploiting them, and that completely undermines any legitimate claim onto the advantages of copyright. The recording industry isn't really an enabler of artists, as much as it is more like the Islamic caliphs of old sitting on overland trade routes, exploiting them until the Europeans figured out how to sail around them and avoid the ridiculous surcharges.
To have an efficient capitalistic economy, you want to reward investment in people that actually add value, and record companies don't. So, having a more consumer friendly business model won't fix the problem. Record companies have to actually pay the artists a real percentage of the music sales. IF shareware distributors can thrive taking 10-15% of a sale, leaving artists with the lion's share, then so can record companies. The situation is different with movies, which are much more collaborative and capital intensive thing, but, even there, there's no reason that the principals of a movie can't get a bigger piece of the pie.
Re: (Score:2)
It seems most big companies aren't interested in anything but exploiting. Take the software industry as an example. Most of them seem to be taking advantage of unknowing users. You could expand that to lawyers, auto mechanics, and so on.
Psychopaths don't care about the economy in general, they just care
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Well even "Free" software isn't really free. Its costs of development are picked up as part of a consultancy arrangement, or, through funding by companies that distribute that software as part of some other bundled service. Like, Apache is free, but its funded, IIRC, by a coalition of large ISPs that use it. They in turn recover the costs from their hosting customers.
Sounds good, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Not just DRM, but rootkit as well (Score:3, Insightful)
"Every time you download a song to your phone, the same song is downloaded to your computer for playback through your PC speakers."
Just how the heck do they know when my PC is on, much less download songs to it? I don't want them downloading songs onto my PC without my knowledge. This service seems insidious. So you're saying every time I want to download a song, your proprietary player needs to be on a computer that's on and hooked up to the internet? Gee, there's no potential for abuse there.
What if someone sends me a rogue music file? If the same file is downloaded to my computer, isn't that going to mess up my machine? Virus writers are going to have a field day with this. Shame on Omniphone for promoting this garbage, and what is LG thinking, buying into this deal?
This will not replace p2p. It will barely make a dent. How can you justify charging for premium unlimited data when the same thing can be done with any smart phone on a wifi network for free? Really, these companies need to go back to their boardrooms and either disband or think of a better business model.
I'm not worried about the DRM. Whatever DRM these files come with will be broken the day that the first music file is downloaded from this service. I just don't understand why they even bother, anymore.
Can't teach a dinosaur new tricks, I suppose.
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How Many Times Do I Need To Say This.... (Score:2)
And if you think a CD has "one or two good tracks on it" then please be a little more selective in your music choice. Don't buy the dross in the charts, there are thousands of classic albums out there that are good from start to finish and are worth every penny you pay for them.
Please don't entertain these idiot music moguls - they w
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
If you DO plan on purchasing RIAA-stuff, at least buy used copies. You don't want to feed the proverbial bears if you don't have to.
In fact, these particular bears I'd love to see die of starvation. Oops - is that sort of comment going to get me in trouble with the animal cruelty people? I mean it figuratively, of course.
No real bears were harmed in the posting of this comment.
the impression of piracy (Score:2)
Just give me a flash capable cellphone (Score:2)
DRM Sorrows (Score:3, Insightful)
While the obvious answer is "None!", somehow I still suspect that DRM would remain, and User B copying a file from User A, instead of downloading it for free from the overloaded servers would still be inviting an RIAA lawsuit!
Re:Call me a dinosaur... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Call me a dinosaur... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You only want a phone to make phone calls to your Turok friends, good for you!
I want to send emails and surf the net dinasaur hunting, good for me!
Pre-teens who want to turn their phones into an artfully crafted public-transport-torture device, unfortunately good for them!
And people who want to use their phones as music players rather than carry round two devices... is it really that bad?
Re: (Score:2)
More importantly than the features that I don't need or want is the hidden strings attached to the service contract for those unwanted services.
This is along the same line
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
First, phones have those features because the vast majority of people find them desirable. Not everyone wants them, of course, but way more than half. Each different phone has a full set of engineering, manufacturing, marketing and packaging costs, which are substantial and have to be spread across a lot of phones to make them affordable. Thus it's cheaper to make, package, and market 100,000 phones than it is to make 1,000 simple phones plus another 99,000 comp
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The fact that the majority is available with all extra options does not mean that the others do not exist.
Also adding the extra is sometimes cheaper then making two different moddels. Some more features will mean a LOT extra different models. Cheaper for the manufacturor means also cheaper for the buyer.
Re:Call me a dinosaur... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
This comment pops up in EVERY damned discussion of advanced phones and it's ALWAYS moderated insightful by mods with more points than sense. It is NOT insightful. It is nothing more than a statement of personal taste by someone with luddite tendecies.
Phones already exist for luddites. This discussion is not about those phones. If you want to discuss those phones go and find somewhere else to discuss them, or submit an articl
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Because it's not a telephone. (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
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Re: (Score:2)
My cellphone has a 2 Gb storage (external). Maybe not enough for a cross-Atlantic trip, but plenty for an hour in the gym. Then again, the battery wouldn't last on a cross-Atlantic trip on the cell. The just announced Nokia N96 will have 16 Gb of internal memory + whatever the size of the mSD card you can find (and afford).
The mobile games are fine. Different g
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Technology has turned you female.
Only instead of lipstick, tampons, tissues and chocolate, it's shiny devices, protective cases, game cartridges, memory cards... Have fun with that.
Music on the phone is just as good as from an iPod. You can also now get phones that take memory cards, in a discrete little slot, that bring them up to the capacity of an iPod touch.
Games are not anything like a DS. But then it's not a huge number of people t
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Heck, I'd love one of those things. But it seems, every time I've gotten excited and tried them, it's turned out that I could have drawn pictures better than the ones the crap optics of the cellphone gives me, the PDA cant even handle DST changes and the audio is a PITA to transfer (altho, from what I've heard, that's gotten better these days).
So instead of one device with all of those things bundled I get to carry all
Re: (Score:2)
In the future, look for them to have docking stations with full sized keyboards and monitors, as the cell phone and the notebook merge.
Why not a Bluetooth application that simply lets you access your PDA/MP3/GSM/CAM filesystem remotely?
As far as merging completely, the laptop still has functionality and a desirable interface that will prevent it from going away anytime soon. Namely, screen size, processing power, and comfort while sitting in bed or at a coffee shop ensure the laptop's future success. Instead of "merge", the words you were looking for is "become more closely integrated".