Universal Music Group's New Music Sharing Service 446
First I had to decide which reseller of UMG music to use and decided on Liquid Audio's On-Line store. One reason I picked this service is because they are the technology backers of this venture, so who better? I'm really glad I picked them, and you will see why after you read about the issues I faced.
Of course, there were plenty of music choices to pick from and it was pretty easy to find artists I was looking for. I first noticed that not every track is 99 cents. Some are higher -- it seems that the less popular stuff cost a little more. Some singles cost $1.49, but I found one free track on this CD.
After finding a CD I wanted, I purchased and downloaded the tracks individually and as one large download, since they provide both options. After downloading the files I could not get any of them to play. For some time this confused me, then I tried clicking on a link provided in an e-mail that was sent to me to confirm my order. Well, they did not tell me this on the website, but clicking that link authenticated me to listen to the tracks. This was a bit frustrating, but survivable. Also, I found you can only go through the process of purchasing and downloading with IE. I use Mozilla by default and was not able to purchase with that browser. You also need to use IE to open the URL in the e-mail that authenticate your tracks.
Once done with that I attempted to burn tracks to a CD. I was using a machine with Windows 2000 SP3 and Windows Media Player 9 (current release candidate for Win2K). Whenever I'd try to burn a track, the Roxio software would die. So I gave up on Media Player 9 and downloaded Liquid Audio's Player (v 6.1). When trying to burn with this player it could not initialize my HP DVD writer (model dvd200i) and for some reason was calling it a 200j instead. I also tried downgrading to Windows Media Player 7.1, but that did not work either. The burning software did not even know my DVD Burner was there. I also tried Real's RealOne player, but it can not burn WMA files.
So I gave up and contacted Liquid Audio's Customer Service. They informed me (via e-mail exchanges) that their software could not recognize my DVD Burner and I would only be able to burn using a CD Burner, not a DVD/CD Burner. I was offered a refund, but I did not want that. I've got a CD Burner, but on another PC. So I thought I'd be able to move the files and burn there. I came to find out find out that I can move files to listen to them on another PC, but they can't be burned on a PC other than the one to which they were first downloaded. So Liquid Audio sent me another link to download tracks with after hearing I had to go to another PC. Then I was able to download and burn tracks with no problem.
You can play the tracks as much as you like on your PC, burn to CD as many tracks as you want, copy the burned CDs, and use the CD to make MP3s. Keep in mind there is supposed to be some form of digital watermarking on the tracks though. So if you give the music to anyone else, they (UMG) are supposed to be able to know it was you who violated their copyright.
So overall it was pretty frustrating making my first CD with this service, but I'll probably be using it again in the future. Like Tuesday, when some new music comes out. I have been boycotting UMG for almost a year, since when I heard they would copy-protect CDs. With this service I have officially ended my boycott.
Pros:
- Easy to download and burn a CD if you have Windows, IE and a CD Burner (not a DVD Burner).
- Easy to find tracks from UMG artists that are well known.
- Good customer service. They really helped as much as they could given the software limitations and offered a refund even though I would have been able to keep playing the tracks on my PC.
- No need to go to the store in the Winter!
Cons:
- No player seems to be able to burn using a DVD burner.
- Tracks are not authenticated till you click a link in an e-mail sent to you.
- Unable to use the service to purchase tracks using Mozilla.
- No small intro type tracks available, even when you buy a full CD of tracks.
Slashdot welcomes reader-submitted features and reviews -- thanks to darnellmc for this review.
Liquid Audio (Score:5, Informative)
In other news, Liquid Audio's CEO resigned. Here's the link [yahoo.com]
SealBeater
Re:Lossy or Lossless Encoding (Score:2, Informative)
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think a lossless compression exists that will make the file size small enough for "most" people to download. That is to say make the audio about one tenth the size of the raw audio.
Re:Price Gouging? (Score:4, Informative)
Just because the profit sheets show a company not making profit does not mean that billions of dollars aren't being made.
Re:Lossy or Lossless Encoding (Score:2, Informative)
Gotta love it. For you non-idiots out there, you may want to consider the concept of lossless compression. It does exist, and I use it quite often to trade music. There is SHN and FLAC, along with a few less portable formats.
Large files still (roughly 50% compressed), but I often d/l SHN files by FTP. What do I care if it takes 8 minutes or 8 hours when I'm asleep?
Re:How could they know if you share the music? (Score:5, Informative)
Watermarking is probably the lesser of evils as it does not stop you copying the music (AFAIK). What it will do however is provide an audit trail of where the music came from. Say a street vendor was busted for selling pirated CD's. They could test the CD's and see that it came from UserX on the UMG service. They could then go to userX and asked him/her how the music ended up on thousands of pirated CD's.
It seems they are trying to create a balance between fully restrictive downloading and playing and free for all mp3/ogg files. Personally I think it is the wrong way to go but time will tell.
UMG Artists and Emusic (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Lossy or Lossless Encoding (Score:1, Informative)
Yes, since he actually mentioned
More info on UMG's service (Score:5, Informative)
1) they're selling the files in 2 formats, the Liquid format and Microsoft's WMA format. I tried both and the Liquid format only works in the Liquid player, while the WMA files will play in Winamp, MusicMatch, WindowsMedia Player, and others. WMA seems to be the default except in a few cases, so check your format before you buy (and you probably want WMA).
2) surprisingly, there are no burn count limits! When you download, the site tells you what the content usage rules are, and you get unlimited burns!!! Sure enough, I made a few burns of the stuff I downloaded and when I checked the properties, there is no burn counter (you can check the license properties on XP in the WMP).
3) portable device support is limited, but they've covered the major players. Again, this varies by format, but for WMA files you can use your Rio X00 or Creative Labs Nomad. I've got a Rio800 and it worked fine. Another surprise - no transfer limits!
4) I was worried about the audio quality, but the files sound great vs your typical kazaa download.
5) I found the different track prices confusing, but eventually I realized that not all of the content in the liquid store is UMG's.
So I found the whole thing to be remakably easy to use (I didn't have any of the download or burn problems mentioned in the original post) and I was pleasantly surprised at the lack of burn or transfer counts. The files do use DRM, but they've got relatively loose rules. My primary complaint is that the selection is still not fantastic. A bunch of things I searched for were not up. Anyway, it's a good start and I hope that the other music companies follow UMG's lead.
Re:Emusic (Score:2, Informative)
An Alternative View on this Service (Score:5, Informative)
First off:
ALBUMS ARE $9.99
ALBUMS ARE $9.99
ALBUMS ARE $9.99
ALBUMS ARE $9.99
Three quarters of the arguments here are about how expensive this is. It's not! I bought the newest Beck album through this service for $9.99. This was the best price I could get outside Best Buy, which is $11.99 and about 20 miles away.
I downloaded the album in Liquid Audio format, because I didn't want Microsoft to get the commission on
Immediately after burning the CD, I ripped it to MP3, (which is what I would have done if I bought a physical CD). These tracks aren't going to P2P or anywhere else. I just want the MP3s for my own personal use, and I paid for them.
THE TRACKS SOUND FINE. I do not have a $50,000 audio system, nor do I have $50,000 ears.
Not caring for my Liquid Audio experience, and wanting the new Nirvana track, I paid for and downloaded that one in
In summary:
1. I paid $9.99 - no tax - no shipping, for the new Beck album. I downloaded it immediately and quickly. No re-tagging, no broken downloads, no bad rips. I burned it on to CD (slowly, this time).
2. I paid $.99 for the new Nirvana track. I wasn't buying an album of music I already own to get one track I don't. And I didn't have to.
I have always said that if 'they' offered this stuff for a reasonable price and so that I could do what I wanted with it, I would buy into it. I'm practicing what I preached.
1. I download in a protected format, but I can burn to CD, which is what I would do if I were downloading MP3s,
2. Once it's an audio CD, I rip it to MP3, which is what I would do if I bought the CD itself.
3. I pay for music instead of getting it free, which I always said I would do. It feels good to practice what I preach, instead of constantly bitching and then changing my tune (haha) solely to allow myself more bitching.
4. The albums are $9.99, which is MUCH less than I would pay for anything new.
This is a good thing. Pity that most of you can't see that, even though this is very close to what many of you asked for all along.
Re:Thanks for the review (Score:5, Informative)
The DRM in this system takes away all the flexibility and reliability we expect of digital music. Look at the insane amount of hoop-jumping darnellmc had to go through to get a usable track! This is not something I could recommend to anyone.
And it's not even anything new - the likes of PressPlay and listen.com have been doing the same for ages (PP even uses the same crappy broken Roxio software). So it doesn't count as a step in the right direction either.
For a music service that really *is* a step in the right direction, try emusic.com. It's far from perfect, but it does offer proper non-DRM-crippled files that you can use, in any way you like. (Or, for people whose machiens don't match the spec that Universal's service deigns to work with, it gives you files you can use at all...)
--
Andrew Clover
mailto:and@doxdesk.com
http://www.doxdes
Re:Emusic (Score:2, Informative)
Ok, here's a mini-review:
I've just started using Emusic, and I really like it so far. It works great on OS X downloading with Chimera [mozilla based], but I find on my Windows box at work that it works better with IE than Mozilla. The thing with Emusic is that you will want to use a download manager to pull down several mp3's at a time, and Mozilla doesn't seem to integrate as well with Emusic's Windows download manager as IE does. Maybe its my configuration, but as I say, I've just started using Emusic.
I expect that it would work fine on other UNIX OS's, at least if you have Mozilla available.
You have to accept that 128kbps mp3 is your only download option, and you aren't getting much (if any) recent major label content. No Britney.
I tried Napster & Gnutella, but I don't like the ethics involved.
I used to use mp3.com, but I gave up on it because it felt like I was wading through too much junk trying to find the occasional bits of good stuff. I don't have the time or intestinal fortitude for that. I'm theorizing that the fact that Emusic bands are all signed to labels may be some kind of minimal quality filter. Maybe mp3.com has changed since 2000 or thereabout, so YMMV. At any rate, so far, so good on the Emusic band quality front.
Emusic has a surprisingly large collection of older stuff as well, (i.e. Judy Garland, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman) if you are into it. And lots of classical music, although 128kbps mp3 starts to show through more here than anywhere else, in my opinion.
Emusic isn't the Heavenly Jukebox people were hoping for in the early days of the mp3 revolution. But its compromises are small enough and user friendly enough that I'm happy to spend US$10/month on their service. I get all the decent quality mp3's I can listen too, and I can feel good about doing it.