Would You Rent a Song For a Dime? 580
An anonymous reader writes "What's worse than a padlocking every song so that they will only play on certain devices? How about selling (renting) you songs that work on no devices? Astonishingly, this is what the music industry thinks we need. Warner Music is spending $20 million to back Lala, a startup devising a service to convince people to 'buy' 'web songs' for 10 cents each; these are then kept for safekeeping only by Lala with no download privileges. Industry insider Michael Robertson leaks the facts on this scheme, along with a seekrit URL so you can try it out."
Imaginary Property (Score:5, Interesting)
Doesn't seem so bad... (Score:5, Interesting)
Granted having your entire music collection in fla is annoying, you can probably can convert it to something a little more usable.
Sounds like a great source for large volumes of music.
Eh? (Score:4, Interesting)
Every permutation... (Score:4, Interesting)
I imagine the schemes will become more and more elaborate, more and more draconian, and more and more amusing for those of us who've had a new thought since the compact disc was invented.
I'm very happy with mindawn.com and emusic.com, and physical CD purchases for those other things I "just gotta have". Everyone else can take a flying leap.
I will just sit back and enjoy watching the churn.
i like Rhapsody (Score:3, Interesting)
That being said- I would like to point out that it's already a losing model with something like Rhapsody in existance, which, btw, I absolutely could not live without! (Thanks to my new Squeezebox Duet, per recommendation of the slashdot crowd. thanks guys!)
Anyway, my point is this: They're late to catch on. Nobody will pay 10 cents to listen to a computer. Listening on the comp should be free, people want to and will pay to take it with them. That being said, 89 cent mp3s are a good idea, this might gain ground.
Re:Imaginary Property (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder what the quality of the audio is?
Cracking the "DRM" (Score:3, Interesting)
http://cfs-listen-80.lala.com/contentfs/content?t=long-list-of-random-chars [lala.com]
Unfortunately, the song seems to not getting stored anywhere on the local hard disk. And when one tries to start downloading the url a second time, a "not found" message is given. Anybody interested of analyzing it some more?
Do it the old school way (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually... (Score:3, Interesting)
But it'd have to be BUYING the music, not renting. I want a high quality VBR MP3 or AAC file, at the minimum.
If the first time is free, so is every other time (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's called a jukebox (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Doesn't seem so bad... (Score:5, Interesting)
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use LWP::Simple;
use Data::Dumper;
use JSON;
$|=1;
die "$0 <search param>" unless $ARGV[0];
my $root_url = "http://next.lala.com/api/AutoComplete/songAutoComplete";
my $content = get "$root_url?prefix=$ARGV[0]";
my $ref = from_json($content);
my $num = 0;
foreach (@{$ref->{data}->{list}}) {
print "$num : $_->{artist} - $_->{title}\n";
$num++;
}
print "Download which? > ";
my $req = <STDIN>;
die "not valid" if ($req < 0 or $req > $num);
my $download_url = "http://next.lala.com/api/Player/getTrackUrls?flash=true&webSrc=lala&widgetId=LalaHeadlessPlayer&T=" . $ref->{data}->{list}->[$req]->{playToken};
my $play_url = get $download_url;
my $play_ref = from_json($play_url);
my $download_link = $play_ref->{data}->[0]->{url};
print "Getting: $download_link\n";
my $filename = $ref->{data}->{list}->[$req]->{artist}
print "Downloading to $filename\n";
system("wget -O '$filename' $download_link");
It's quick, it's dirty, but it works:
perl download.pl tiesto
0 : Tiesto - Ten Seconds Before Sunrise
1 : Tiësto - Forever Today
Download which? > 0
Getting: http://cfs-listen-52.lala.com/contentfs/content?t=NjU1MzVVNDM2OTE1OQ%3D%3D-vSOzDPPcV8VwbKW6Bwdv%2FQ%3D%3D
Downloading to Tiesto-Ten Seconds Before Sunrise.mp3
--2008-05-27 18:16:09-- http://cfs-listen-52.lala.com/contentfs/content?t=NjU1MzVVNDM2OTE1OQ%3D%3D-vSOzDPPcV8VwbKW6Bwdv%2FQ%3D%3D
Resolving cfs-listen-52.lala.com... 209.237.235.158
Connecting to cfs-listen-52.lala.com|209.237.235.158|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 3609494 (3.4M) [audio/x-mpeg]
Saving to: `Tiesto-Ten Seconds Before Sunrise.mp3'
Re:If you can listen, you can save (Score:3, Interesting)
There are these services that are popping up left and right that enable you to download music from youtube (it basically rips the audio out of the FLV files and makes an mp3 that you can download or just creates a playlist of the video files without displaying the video for you to stream from your browser). I hate those things because the quality of youtube (both the video and the audio) are very low. It reminds me of what passed for normal desktop video in 98/99.
For the last decade I've been ripping my CDs the moment I get back to my computer and there are many tracks that I'd never listened to in their full quality. Being that I started ripping at 128kbps and switched to 192 shortly thereafter, I've been throwing out a big chunk of audio data. It wasn't until I listened to some full-quality, lossless tracks that I realized how much quality I was actually throwing away.
Low quality online-only audio is ok for streaming, especially if you're using it as background music from your PC speakers, but if you're going to listen on headphones or through any kind of decent speakers, even the iTunes purchased tracks aren't high quality enough... how can they expect us to pay [anything] for such inferior quality?
Re:Eh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Although, I think the idea is not bad at all, I believe is way ahead of its time for one reason:
I could use my cellphone (smartphone, iphone like) and listen music over internet, but I'd need an Internet plan. That's not a problem for people using iPhones, but they will certainly prefer to use iTunes. I don't know about the rest.
If I'm not able to listen to my music, without paying for an additional Internet service, the music turns out to be more expensive than it really looks like, and it will interfere with my eventual browsing due to bandwidth consumption.
So, why would I use it anyways?
Re:Imaginary Property (Score:2, Interesting)
If you want to get the MP3, you pay 89 cents to download a high quality version.
Re:i like Rhapsody (Score:3, Interesting)
What if lala were to magically appear on your Duet's screen? That would equalize the playing field a little more. Depending on how bit your Rhapsody library is, it might save you money in the long run to use lala. You're already paying a rental fee to listen to Rhapsody on your Duet; the key difference is that Rhapsody is $14 a month for all you can eat, while lala is a la carte rental.
Much of my music listening is ephemeral. I recently added the new Donna Summer album to my Rhapsody library (it's actually pretty decent). This is how it would break down for me:
The thing is that I don't want to have it forever. It is simply not a great album and I'm sure that next month I'll be on to something else.
The other thing is that lala does not carry this album, so it's moot. A 5MM track library makes no difference if they don't have enough of the stuff that you want.
Re:It's called a jukebox (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Doesn't seem so bad... (Score:4, Interesting)
This one will do paging, use n/p to go next/previous when prompted.
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use LWP::Simple;
use Data::Dumper;
use JSON;
$|=1;
die "$0 <search param>" unless $ARGV[0];
my $ref;
my $offset;
my $req;
while(1) {
$req = "";
my $root_url = "http://next.lala.com/api/SearchUtils/search/v19.110.0-24?Q=$ARGV[0]&sortKey=relevance&sortDir=desc&Nb=100&Sk=$offset&webSrc=lala";
my $content = get $root_url;
$content =~ s/new Date\((\d+)\)/$1/g;
$ref = from_json($content);
my $num = 0;
foreach (@{$ref->{data}->{songs}->{list}}) {
print "$num : $_->{artist} - $_->{title}\n";
$num++;
}
print "Download which? > ";
chomp($req = <STDIN>);
if ($req =~
$offset+=100;
next;
}
if ($req =~
$offset-=100;
$offset=0 if $offset<0;
next;
}
if ($req !~
print "Invalid!\n";
next;
}
last;
}
my $download_url = "http://next.lala.com/api/Player/getTrackUrls?flash=true&webSrc=lala&widgetId=LalaHeadlessPlayer&T=" . $ref->{data}->{songs}->{list}->[$req]->{playToken};
my $play_url = get $download_url;
my $play_ref = from_json($play_url);
my $download_link = $play_ref->{data}->[0]->{url};
print "Getting: $download_link\n";
my $filename = $ref->{data}->{list}->[$req]->{artist}
print "Downloading to $filename\n";
system("wget -O '$filename' $download_link");
Re:It's called a jukebox (Score:3, Interesting)
If you're at a diner, then dragging in your own jukebox and playing from that is not possible, because the owners of the premise will object and throw you out. So you can't fill the airwaves with your own music at a diner, and paying for it on the diner's jukebox is the next best thing. But the crucial point is that the owners of the diner are able to enforce this restriction on you the customer.
If you're at home, then nobody can stop you from filling the airwaves of your house with music from your own jukebox (assuming it's not too loud etc), so you just do it, and you wouldn't dream of paying for the privilege.
Enforceability is the key with all those issues. Take the diner's owners. They might play whatever music they like in the diner for their customers without licensing the music, as you can easily do in your own home or car. But public premises can be entered by anybody, so it's easy for the local RIAA outfit to *enforce* the licensing requirement in this case - they just send someone to check up on the business.
So it's not really *intention* that matters, it's whether someone else can reasonably do something about it and will.
Re:(cue piano music) (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Mr Robertson is himself a huge problem (Score:2, Interesting)
Linspire ? joke.
SIPphone ? stillborn.
MP3tunes ? *crickets*
There's one thing music people hate: sellout, and this guy is the king of selling out. He's just a dollar sign with a big, arrogant mouth.
Re:Imaginary Property (Score:3, Interesting)
Ssshhh! Don't tell them about "What U Hear" (Score:3, Interesting)
Free music!
Re:Imaginary Property (Score:3, Interesting)
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