Dataplay Ready to Launch 345
geophile writes "Let's see. This is a CD-like, CD-incompatible storage medium with
lower storage capacity than a CD; copying, which is supported by CDs
and permitted by fair-use laws is not possible; and it's more
expensive than a CD. Read about this great idea here." We've done a couple of stories on the Dataplay discs; this one discusses the heavy content controls built-in. MSNBC had an article on Dataplay a few weeks ago that mentions an "education process" needed to get people to re-buy all their old music in a new format.
Re:Well (Score:2, Funny)
As long as this tastes the same, I'll buy it!
I'm all for this wonderful innovation (Score:3, Funny)
That's good! That's bad! (Score:3, Funny)
The discs will cost about $16 when they are released in stores in early June, with one album of music ready to play. But because the discs pack data densely and the music is compressed using methods similar to that of MP3 software, each can contain up to five albums of music.
Some music companies will release the discs with hidden extra albums, which can be activated by entering codes bought at their Web sites for $8 to $13.
The extra disc space can contain videos and lyrics, accessed by connecting a Dataplay player to a computer. When connected, a user can also store data on the discs -- 250 megabytes on each side, for a total slightly less than the 650 megabytes that fit on a CD.
Data can only be written to the discs, not erased.
That's Good:
Hey! There's a "secret album" on this disc, and I only have to pay 50-80% of what it would cost to buy that album by itself.
That's Bad:
Hey! All of the "secret albums" are third-rate crap that the record company didn't think they'd be able to sell as standalong albums.
That's Good:
Wow! I can store my own data on the 80% of the storage capacity that's just going to waste.
That's Bad:
Wow! The record company put three crap "secret albums" on this disc...but I still have 20% of the storage capacity for my own stuff.
That's Good:
Cool! I'll put this album that I haven't listened to yet on the free 20% of this disc, so that I can check it out on my way to school.
That's Bad:
Cool! There's one good song on this album, and the rest of it sucks. I guess I'll just listen to the good song a lot, since I can't delete this album from the disc.
OK, Folks... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This will be a good test... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Idiot (Score:2, Funny)
Jesus H. Christ (Score:5, Funny)
Napster comes in, CD sales go up 8%.
Napster goes OUT, CD sales go DOWN 5%.
What in the Sam Hill are they putting in the water coolers at the RIAA?
If I can hear the music first, I'll buy it. If, like in central CT, there are two dozen candy-ass radio stations all following maybe four godforsaken formats, there's a better likelyhood that I'll hemorrhage from hearing "Rock The Boat" seventeen times a day before I'll hear something I want to try.
Of course, if MTV would try playing music again, maybe we'd have another venue for music that wasn't an inch wide and a mile deep. Not convinced? Here's the show list for the plucky little channel...
Andy Dick / Becoming / Celebrity Deathmatch / Cribs / Daria / Diary / Dismissed / Fashionably Loud: Swimsuit 2002
Fear / Icon: Aerosmith / Making The Band / Making the Video Movie Awards 2002 / National Sex Quiz / Now What
The Osbournes / The Real World / Road Rules / Real World/Road Rules Challenge / Rock N Jock
Señor Moby's House of Music / Spring Break / TRL / Unplugged / Video Music Awards 2001 / WWF Tough Enough
Any channel that has The Osbornes, Andy Dick, the Real World and the WWF needs a name change, a new mission statement, and a prescription pad.
Like most people who can afford the necesary bandwidth in the first place, I have more money than time. I haven't the hours nor the inclination to burn everything I want to own. I go buy it. HMV and Borders are on my commute. Or I click and three days later it's in my mailbox, total extra investment of time - about 3 minutes.
I've downloaded much gig of music, and deleted nearly all of it once purchased. It's an iBook, not a server farm. I believe I have at most a half dozen CD-R keepers - mostly the stuff I'd gotten and paid for on mp3.com back when they were sane, and a whole bunch of rare tracks and but-wait-there's-more - the entire TIAA-CREF investment primer library so I can afford all this stuff in the first place (lousy beat, but you can dance to it all the way to the bank).
If I burned everything I ever downloaded to sample, I'd have a large, substandard collection of badly labeled CD-Rs, no life, dead tropical fish, and Howard-Hughes-league fingernails. Not to mention a cataloging system nowhere near the intuitiveness and familiarity of a bookcase, alphabetical by artist.
The RIAA should kiss Shawn's nappy little ass for providing the only true breakthru in music marketing since the music video. But as usual, the industry has figured out how to tie the whole relaunch up in knots because even BMG really doesn't like the whole thing but they smell money. I doubt it was a sanctified "we should be honestly representing our artist's interest" but rather a pant-wetting "holy crap - see these DL logs? can you imagine a dollar sign in front of each of these?" I mean please - it's taken them a year to not get ready, and from the get go they won't be able to write a MacOS client (no mention of any other platforms) and they can't for the life of them figure out how to take credit AND debit cards at the same time. There are one-man roasted cashew operations in East Rainbucket, Maine who can do this.
I gotta go.