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Music Media Businesses

Technical Glitches Plague BuyMusic.com 691

An anonymous reader submits: "Despite its much larger target market, BuyMusic.com does not seem to be the runaway success that Apple's iTunes Music Store was. USA Today is reporting that customers have experienced technical glitches that prevent them from playing their purchases. Another customer reports that the BuyMusic tech support does little more than say 'Sorry, but that's YOUR problem.' Finally, a musician whose music is for sale at BuyMusic questions the legality of BuyMusic's catalog." Scriptygoddess's account of her unhappy experience is mirrored here.
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Technical Glitches Plague BuyMusic.com

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  • by seanadams.com ( 463190 ) * on Wednesday July 30, 2003 @01:12AM (#6568009) Homepage
    DRM inconveniences ONLY the people who are paying.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 30, 2003 @01:16AM (#6568035)
    Thank you for visiting BuyMusic.com.

    In order to take full advantage of BuyMusic.com's offerings you must be on a Windows Operating System using Internet Explorer version 5.0 or higher.
  • Quote from one of the links:

    Wasn't there a song called "Money For Nothing" - I think I'll buy it from iTunes once it's released for the PC.

    Argh! First the music industry convinces people that info = real, tangible property and copying = theft, and now they've got people unconsciously thinking that like software, data file formats are computer and OS dependent!

  • Let's review, shall we? BuyMusic.com's problems are:

    • They offer a shoddy, blatent ripoff of a manifestly superior Apple product.
    • Their system is buggy and crashes frequently.
    • They're hamstrung by a user-hostile DRM scheme.
    • Their technical support's response to complaints about the company's incompetence is to blame the user.


    So, in short, BuyMusic.com has only one viable business plan: get bought out by Microsoft! They'd fit right in...
  • by gsfprez ( 27403 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2003 @01:54AM (#6568277)
    you forgot one..

    they are offering illegally obtained music for sale.
    they are worse than Kazza users because those users are not profiting from the sale of IP theft from the copyright holder.

    see www.jodywhitesides.com for the details.

    here is the email i sent to the RIAA.
    __________________
    Subj: Information on copyright theft

    i wanted to let the RIAA know about a music pirate i have found out information on.

    their IP address is 209.67.181.11. They have on their website illegally obtained music from an artist named Jody Whitesides (http://jodywhitesides.com/). This website is owned by a music stealing group known as buy.com, and not only are they distributing this copyrighted music without consent of the copyright holder, but they are also SELLING the music online.

    I am all for the stamping out of IP theft.... and i know that the RIAA is as well. I hope you can contact me on this matter to let me know the status of your investigation.

    Thanks in advance.
    _______________________

    i'm curious, but doubtful i'll get any kind of response.
  • So how much laughter do you think is running around the hallways over at Apple right now?
  • by CyberSlugGump ( 609485 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2003 @02:33AM (#6568464)
    Funny, I just got one page :-D

    Thank you for visiting BuyMusic.com.

    In order to take full advantage of BuyMusic.com's offerings you must be on a Windows Operating System using Internet Explorer version 5.0 or higher.
  • by red floyd ( 220712 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2003 @02:34AM (#6568466)
    Well, as somebody either here or on one of the links pointed out, the site is called "BuyMusic.com", not "PlayMusic.com".

    She was able to buy it, just not play it the way she wanted.

    And, yes, for you sarcasm-impaired, that's sarcasm.
  • by Melibeus ( 94008 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2003 @03:01AM (#6568594)
    About Buy Services Founded in January of 2002, BuyServices is privately held and funded by Buy.com founder Scott Blum. The company develops and operates a cross platform capable, fully hosted e-commerce solution for media, retail and e-tail companies. With the combined talent of experienced e-commerce professionals, BuyServices? goal is to become the premier outsource e-commerce provider
    Cross platform capable? Talent? Professionals? Let me think for a millisecond...
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 30, 2003 @03:03AM (#6568600)
    Result: left as an exercise for the reader.

    Oooh! I know! Call on me! Call on me... BuyMusic wins because the first company to introduce a superior product (Apple) always finishes last in a marketplace where success is driven by saturation advertising, truth is defined by how often something is repeated, and cheap bad products triumph over carefully crafted and groundbreaking solutions!

    So Apple is toast.

    Do I get a little gold star to put on my name tag?

  • Satisfying. (Score:2, Funny)

    by General Sherman ( 614373 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2003 @03:35AM (#6568699) Journal
    This is really satisfying to hear about 20 minutes after watching one of their commercials. It was pretty shameless, almost up there with that Gateway one trashing the iMac. It's basically like Honda making a commercial where some guy comes in on a white background and takes a baseball bat to a Toyota. Except in the BM commercial, it's a guy trashing the iTMS ad's electric guitar.

    Good to know their services sucks as much as their ads do.
  • Re:RTFM (Score:3, Funny)

    by Blondie-Wan ( 559212 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2003 @04:44AM (#6568945) Homepage
    The fact that dozens of people are actually happy and satisfied with the service is proof
    "Dozens"? Ah, now there's a ringing endorsement. :)
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 30, 2003 @08:17AM (#6569556)
  • by imadork ( 226897 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2003 @09:18AM (#6569903) Homepage
    Buy Music has no Weird Al (at least when I looked on my work PC this morning).

    iTunes didn't use to have any, but they recently added the album with the Amish rap song on it. Which I will be buying once I get a spare moment at home.

    What truer test of iTunes worth to society (and buymusic's worthlessness) can there possibly be?

  • by frozenray ( 308282 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2003 @10:25AM (#6570401)
    > Cross platform capable? Talent? Professionals? Let me think for a millisecond...

    Oh, that's just PHB-speak. Let me translate:

    Term: Cross platform capable
    Translation: Supports Windows ME, 2K and XP, provided that you have a recent IE Version installed and haven't screwed up the IE settings too much (cookies, ActiveX, ...)

    Term: Talent
    Translation: They somehow managed to install IIS [netcraft.com]

    Term: Professionals
    Translation: We pay them. Not enough to make a decent living, but we pay them, so they're professionals.

    Sentence: BuyServices' goal is to become the premier outsource e-commerce provider
    Comment: And my goal is to have sex with five different supermodels seven days a week. Unfortunately for BuyServices, they're as likely to reach their goal as I am to reaching mine.
  • by majorflaw ( 618333 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2003 @10:27AM (#6570416)
    "It helps that most of the people Apple has been targeting with their service have at least one of the following qualities: rabid devotion to Apple no matter (so they'll buy it just to make Apple look good), rabid devotion to being as "hip" as possible (so they'll buy it just to make themselves look good)."

    I would like to know how you arrived at this incisive, all inclusive, Apple customer demographic. I only buy what I need and can afford (no iPod yet), and I gave up on being hip 25 years ago. I have no interest in making Apple look good, they seem to be quite good at it themselves.

    "Frankly, if I were Apple I would make a version of iTunes and the Music Store that are compatible with Microsoft Windows as soon as possible-- BEFORE Microsoft and someone else come along."

    I would love to be a fly on the wall during the M$--RIAA negotiations:

    M$: How much will it cost for us to buy you?
    RIAA: We're not for sale, however we will sell you a limited license to use our product.
    M$: Wait a minute, that's our line.
    RIAA: And you'd better act fast; we have solid information that college kids are using your o/s to illegally pirate music, and we are just about to sue them.

    Realistically, do you expect that a Wintel version of the iTunes store will work as easily and reliably as Apple's. I would reverse your market plan and use iTunes to sell Macs rather than let the bitter taste left by an M$/RIAA hybrid do the job for me.
    You really think that M$ would allow iTunes Music Store to work well with their o/s. It's possible, but where's the precedent?
  • by rimsky ( 106475 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2003 @10:43AM (#6570541)
    They're called buymusic, not playmusic...
  • by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2003 @12:52PM (#6571703)
    > What's the problem? When he gets back to the hotel at night, he wants to watch a movie. Big deal.

    I'll tell you what the big deal is! The big deal is that watching movies is STEALING!

    If the hotel's TV offers a chance to pay $7.95 to see Dirty Harry, and you bring in your own DVD of Dirty Harry, and your own laptop, so that you can watch the movie without paying the hotel, you're STEALING MONEY RIGHT OUT OF THE INNKEEPER'S WALLET!

    And don't even think about buying a six-pack of Coke at the corner store for $2.99 when you're supposed to be paying $4.50 for a 6-oz bottle out of the minibar! (To say nothing of having the unmitigated gall to chill your six-pack with hotel-supplied ice!)

  • by SysKoll ( 48967 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2003 @02:03PM (#6572333)

    BuyMusic.com is getting bad reviews from multiple sources. So it's pretty obvious it might well fail from its appalling user interface and its smothering restrictions.

    Yet, you can bet that next year, all this will be summarized in a nice, Powerpoint presentation to RIAA execs:

    • BuyMusic.com opened July 2003
    • Huge choice: 300,000+ songs generously offered
    • Supported Windows (90% of PCs)
    • Service folded in [insert date not too far in future]
    • Accumulated losses of $[insert scary amount]
    • Conclusion: The Market Does Not Want Music Download.

    "See", an RIAA exec will pontificate, "we pamper 'em ungrateful Internet pirates and they don't want to use legal downloads. Let's just go back to serving them lawsuit papers."

    At which point Powerpoint will BSOD promptly, and the discussion will drift on to Britney's navel jewelry and its marketing tie-ins.

    -- SysKoll
  • Re:Why (Score:2, Funny)

    by dave1212 ( 652688 ) on Wednesday July 30, 2003 @05:05PM (#6574085) Homepage
    "most "nerds" don't own a Mac either."

    True, but they wish they did. :)

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