Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Music Media Communications

AT&T Deal With eMusic Excludes iPhones 202

Posted by kdawson from the you-scratch-my-back dept.
ubermiester writes "ArsTechnica reports that AT&T has inked a deal with eMusic, a direct competitor to Apple's iTunes music store. eMusic specializes in independent artists and offers DRM-free content for direct download. For a monthly fee (the number of tracks one can download per month depends on the package) the site's catalog will be available to AT&T customers using Samsung and Nokia handsets, but not the iPhone."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

AT&T Deal With eMusic Excludes iPhones More

AT&T Deal With eMusic Excludes iPhones

Comments Filter:

  • Uh... (Score:5, Informative)

    by His Shadow ( 689816 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @06:25PM (#20063975) Homepage Journal
    eMusic is a website. You subscribe to it and pay a monthly fee for a certain number of downloads. Then you download the songs to your iTunes and sync them. The AT&T deal has users pay prices many times higher to get the utility of downloading songs directly to your phone

    What, exactly, is the story here? That Boo Hoo, I have to continue to pay the much lower cost of 7$US for 40 songs and sync it to my iPhone using iTunes?

    Now who is going to be hit with the "cost of cool"?

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Aranykai ( 1053846 )
      In other news:

      People are in shock that you can buy music from walmart.com and put it on an Apple iPod.

    • Re:Uh... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @09:16PM (#20065421)
      In the article it says:

      $7.49 a month for access to five songs
      Wow, that's expensive. Who would pay that much for music. I currently have the $15 plan, and I get 50 songs. So if I bought the songs on my cell phone, I would pay about $1.50 for a song. With my plan, I pay $0.30 for a song. That means it costs 5 times more to buy it on the phone. I can't seriously see this working, or creating any good press for eMusic or AT&T. eMusic is all about delivering indie music at a fair price. If this is the first exposure people have to eMusic, they will relate it with high prices for not-even-big-name-bands. Why would anybody pay $1.50 a song, just to have it now, instead of downloading it when you got home, or to your office, or a friends house, or to a coffee shop with your laptop...
      • I can't seriously see this working, or creating any good press for eMusic or AT&T.

        Totally, and the punchline is, as this post shows, Apple gets bad PR as a side-effect for a deal it has nothing to do with. Everybody loses! Leave it to Ma Bell. Your World. Delivered. At a 500% Markup.
  • I love eMusic, but this seems rather pricey - especially since many new phones can just browse the eMusic site and use their standard (and much cheaper) plans. That, or just download the songs on a PC and transfer them across.

    What am I missing? Is downloading songs on the road such a big deal?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mh101 ( 620659 )

      ...many new phones can just browse the eMusic site and use their standard (and much cheaper) plans.
      Yes, you could browse www.emusic.com on an iPhone (or any other phone with a web browser), but then there's the matter of downloading the songs and importing it into the iPhone's music library.

  • what a choice (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fermion ( 181285 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @06:32PM (#20064059) Homepage Journal
    So, for a monthly fee I can download low quality music to my phone over a very slow network, which will require me to purchase not only the subscription, but also the data plan, and also pay for any data transfered over the data plan limit, or I can just plug the phone into my computer and transfer a new batch of high quality songs each day, for free.

    Hmmm...I wonder what my choice would be.

    Now for people without computers, I can see how this is a good deal. I would also say that for kids that into this music, it would be good.

    I think the lack of iPhone support is a non issue. I suppose that I can subscribe to emusic myself from my computer, get the music into itunes and then on the iPhone, and not have to waste the phones times downloading music instead of surfing the web. I doubt there is enough bandwidth for both. Next thing you tell me is that I am supposed to be annoyed because I do not have opportunity to spend $3 for ringtones.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by suv4x4 ( 956391 )
      So, for a monthly fee I can download low quality music to my phone over a very slow network, which will require me to purchase not only the subscription, but also the data plan, and also pay for any data transfered over the data plan limit, or I can just plug the phone into my computer and transfer a new batch of high quality songs each day, for free.

      Hmmm...I wonder what my choice would be.

      Nice example of a spin. The AT&T offer is inferior since it's many times more expensive (maybe it's woth it if you
    • which will require me to purchase not only the subscription, but also the data plan

      You have a subscription without data traffic? What sort of developing country are you in?

  • How does DRM-free stuff exclude anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Sloppy ( 14984 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @06:35PM (#20064097) Homepage Journal

    Is this "DRM-free" stuff, DRM in disguise? Or is it unscrambled but still in a near-useless proprietary format (which is just about as bad as DRM)? I don't give a damn about Apple's products specifically, but any interoperability problems they have, anyone else is going to have too.

    Geez, quit fuckin' with us. You just aren't going to get my money if your stuff doesn't work.

    • Actually emusic itself is a really good site. I'd have bought more stuff off them but like I told them when I unsubscribed, I'll decide when to give them my money. I went for the free trial (25 songs) then I bought 2 albums and quit the service. I would use it again if I felt there was something on the site. The music is DRM free as well, I've had no problems using it on my ipod (something which they are proud to be compatible with) and I've burned cd's with the tracks I've bought to use on my hi fi. J

    • Delivery (Score:3, Informative)

      by pavon ( 30274 )
      This is a special setup where you can download songs directly onto your phone. That requires special software on the phone that the iPhone doesn't have. The files are not obfuscated in any way - they are plain old mp3s.

      If you don't want to pay the obscene prices they are charging for this service, you can always get a normal subscription at the eMusic website, download music at your computer and sync to whatever you want just like you always have been able to.

    • What? (Score:2)

      by msimm ( 580077 )
      I think your post has me scrambled. But since I've been an emusic customer for...6? years now I'll just point out a few things and speculate. I read the article (on my own, I've been following smartphones a lot since I'm in the market, plus I'm an eMusic fan and *not* an AT&T fan). eMusic *is* 100% DRM free and has been since the start, even after their sale (GoodNoise, Vivendi Universal and finally JDS Capital Management, Inc.).

      I think the point of the OA is that AT&T has teamed up with the #2 on
    • It's DRM free. I've been a happy customer for years, and they sell totally unencumbered high bit rate MP3 files. No iTunes, no iPod required: I play my music on Squeezeboxes and a rockboxed iRiver iHP-120.
    • I'm a happy emusic subscriber. You pay a monthly fee to download x number of songs, which you must use within that month. The downloads are unprotected VBR mp3 files, which typically have bitrates of at least 160kbps. You can do whatever you want with them, there are no DRM restrictions.

      It's a great service that lets me buy music online without having to cheat the artists (a la AllofMp3) or accept the shackles of DRM.

  • I don't understand (Score:4, Informative)

    by dmoore ( 2449 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @06:38PM (#20064125)
    I can't see why anybody would sign up for this. ATT's webpage states that data transport charges still apply when you are using this service. I am already an eMusic subscriber for $10 per month and I get 30 downloads with that.

    Using my unlocked Nokia N80, I have always been able to browse eMusic's website using the data portion of my AT&T cell plan. Although I haven't actually tried to download a song that way using my existing eMusic account, I suspect it would work fine, because their site just links directly to MP3 files. Most Nokia phones already have a built-in MP3 player as well.

  • Dumb sensationalism (Score:3, Insightful)

    by GarfBond ( 565331 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @06:42PM (#20064171)
    Nevermind the fact that even iTunes is excluded from OTA downloads on the iPhone...

    This may change in the future, but that's entirely up to Apple. It's their platform, they can do what they want with it. You're free to purchase, or not purchase, from them.

    Not to mention that because emusic is entirely DRM free, you're free to download them normally on your desktop and then put it in iTunes. I do it with an iPod every month...

    Sheesh, even mediocre announcements are trying to ride iPhone hype.
    • But I do think this is interesting. Mostly because I really like eMusic and this might be a selling point as I chose my next provider. Then there's that small bit of irony, and you know, Apple/iPhone is the new du-jour.

  • Easy choice (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @07:00PM (#20064343)
    Given the choice between the iPhone+iTunes and some other phone + eMusic, I for one would choose the Apple solution hands down.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by JamesRose ( 1062530 )
      Would you change your mind if I were to tempt you with an ePhone to go with eMusic?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by linhux ( 104645 )
      And you don't have to choose at all, since nothing stops you from signing up for eMusic the normal way and using that music on your iPhone. What you get from eMusic is just plain-old MP3s that can be played anywhere. Best of two worlds.
    • plus 5 insightful? you can't be serious.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by smkndrkn ( 3654 )
      It really depends on your tastes in music. If you are into more mainstream RIAA labeled bands then iTunes is probably the best way to go. I like eMusic because it has more independent artists like Okkervil River, Ladyhawk and Spoon. I get the music at about 1/3 of the price of iTunes and it only costs me about $10/mo.
  • So? eMusic is hardly a direct competitor. They have indie groups and labels. Big deal. $7.49 to download 5 songs compared to $10 for 10 via computer?

    Why would I want to download to my phone again????

  • Something missing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Statecraftsman ( 718862 ) * on Tuesday July 31, 2007 @07:19PM (#20064499)
    I'm no expert in partnerships and marketing but there's something about the AT&T/iPhone deal that's a little strange.

    Apple is advertising like crazy for the iPhone but it's almost as if AT&T is forbidden from advertising using this relationship. Has this struck anyone else as strange or am I having too much coffee?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by schnell ( 163007 )

      Apple is advertising like crazy for the iPhone but it's almost as if AT&T is forbidden from advertising using this relationship. Has this struck anyone else as strange or am I having too much coffee?

      An interesting take, and it might suggest partner friction in other situations. But in this case, there's nothing strange about it. The simple fact is that AT&T doesn't need to advertise the iPhone, since Apple is already spending a lot of money doing it. AT&T isn't losing any iPhone subscribers to other carriers of course, and AT&T even gets brand halo points from Apple's ads (AT&T's tag appears at the end of every iPhone TV spot).

      It's very common for device manufacturers to subsidize a

  • ...lets say it DIDN'T exclude iPhones. How is it going to work? Can't install any software on it, can't download anything. If you could download music, how are you going to play it? Unless it's transferred into it from iTunes, it ain't gonna work.

    They have to say it's 'excluded' otherwise the difficult questions would start to get asked like why does the service not work on the iPhone when this so called 'revolutionary' device is shown up yet again by phones that have been around for years.
  • It will be like that first breath of fresh air after you quit smoking.

    Look for music with the Creative Commons [creativecommons.org] seal of approval. There are Creative Commons search engines [creativecommons.org], in which you can specify whether you want music you can use commercially, or whether you can create derivative works.

    There is also the Common Content Catalog [commoncontent.org], which has a Music Section [commoncontent.org].

    If you like piano, there is my humble offerring [geometricvisions.com], in a variety of audio formats as well as sheet music. I chose to place my music under the Creativ [creativecommons.org]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by niceone ( 992278 ) *
      Personally I am not in favour of copylefted music, even though I am a big fan of copylefted software. My reason is that it takes a lot of work to become a great musician, in fact you probably need to dedicate your whole lief to it. The same is true of becoming a great writer of software, but the huge difference is that it is relatively easy to get someone to pay you (lots!) to perfect your craft in software - if you're lucky your employer might even pay you to write the copylefted software. The same isn't t

Slashdot Top Deals

A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable. -- Thomas Jefferson

Close