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
IUMA (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:IUMA (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:IUMA (Score:2, Interesting)
*Most* people want a service that is better than p2p. Universal are nearer this than IUMA but they need encouragement, not flaming, to offer us this.
Re:IUMA (Score:3, Insightful)
Because sometimes long term objectives are more important then short term pleasures.
Hell, by your reasoning, why boycott ANY product if the product is enjoyed? Sometimes it is more then just the product, but how the product is made or where the money used to purchase the product goes.
Lossy or Lossless Encoding (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Based on my experience ... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm even more elitist than you (Score:5, Funny)
If they are compressed using lossy encoding, like mp3, that would reduce its appeal to me, since I prefer my 44.1kHz pcm audio. I'd resent paying for inferior quality data, but that's just me. Oh, and since I don't have Windows or a Mac I can't use IE anyway, so it's all academic.
Hrmph. 44.1kHz just doesn't cut it for me; I prefer my audio at 196kHz, 48 bits per sample, 6.1 channels, and I resent paying for anything less. But then again my computer is a Thinking Machine CM5, which doesn't even come with a sound card, so I guess it's all academic for me, too.
Re:I'm even more elitist than you (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, come on. If you've got a CM5, you don't need a sound card. It's fast enough so you can exploit the race conditions between the universal cellular calculation states to hack reality and cause the audio to spontaneously manifest via Brownian motion in your room.
(You can also use the same effect to revitalise flat cola. It's well worth looking into, although you do need to download a kernel patch.)
Re:Lossy or Lossless Encoding (Score:4, Interesting)
The audio compression types that I was aware of while I was there were mostly Dolby AAC [vialicensing.com] with a handful of MP3s. They were working on WMA when I left the company, so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the current library is in that format.
Chris Owens
San Carlos, CA
IE runs under Wine (Score:2)
FWIW, you could run IE in Linux if that was really the only issue you had. If you want it to be really, really easy and support Wine development, purchase Crossover Office from Codeweavers [codeweavers.com] for a measly $55. (Try getting a Windows license for that!)
I'm simply a happy customer of theirs, no affiliation.
Re:IE runs under Wine (Score:2)
But, im an OEM.
CodeWeavers is good for the ability to run Windows apps in Linux - Thats where its value is.
Its not a Windows replacement because (obviouslly) it runs only a miniscule fraction of the stuff that runs on Windows. Its intended to let you mix one or two Windows things with Linux.
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:Lossy or Lossless Encoding (Score:2, Insightful)
On any decent speed DSL line, that will take about 5 minutes, 20 seconds - a perfectly reasonable time to wait for an Actually-CD-Quality audio track.
Re:Lossy or Lossless Encoding (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lossy or Lossless Encoding (Score:3)
Thanks for the review (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Thanks for the review (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't mind paying for something, but the middlemen in the music biz add very little value, and IMHO screw a lot up!
I want to listen to lots of music but I can't afford to with a big mortgage and kids. I have several music mad friends who buy 100's of CD's a year - and they'd buy more if they could afford to. Basically we want to pay the creators of the music, and I don't see these services moving towards that so I shan't support them.
Read this Courtney Love [salon.com] article - she is so right (even if I was a bit dismissive of her before I read this).
That's what it's all about, not whether I can buy 'n download from the net! That kind of tech is just a way for us (musicians & fans) to cut out the fat cat middlemen, and introduce middlemen who get paid for the value they add... Thanks for listening, Andy. (UK)
Re:Thanks for the review (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure I'll sound like a troll - don't waste mod points on me. I already know it.
I think that supporting this service will encourage the continuing price fixing and gouging for music. The middlemen have made so much money off artists & consumers and I am hoping that the digital revolution will turn this around.
So, when will you be happy? When either of these is true? :
1. Artists write, record, mix, produce, package, market and ship all their own music...or
2. Middlemen get paid nothing - these include song writers, sound technicians, recording techs, supporting musicians, producers, production assistans, secretaries, marketing advisors, managers, stock boys, warehouse managers, trucking companies, gas station attendants...I could go on for hours!
I'm sorry, it just realy sounds like people here are getting in the habit of forgetting that there's ANYONE involved in music production other than "the artist".
Price fixing and price gouging SUCK! I hate them as much as the next guy, but this IS a step in the right direction, and when you complain about this, too, you sound a lot like the psychos who think we never landed on the moon (add +5 funny to the "we landed on the moon!!?" comments) when you try to give them proof of it. Even if you showed the lunar lander to them, they'd still say, "It was planted."
You sound like even if the ultimate scheme was devised and adhered to by the hundreds of thousands of workers involved in music production, where the artists make planty of money and Hilary Rosen is eating out of a dumpster somewhere, you'd say, "I don't mind paying for something, but the middlemen in the music biz add very little value, and IMHO screw a lot up!" and never support with your pocketbook!!
/rant
Re:Thanks for the review (but...) (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, you could email them and complain about how they implemented the business model, requiring IE in order to use their service. I would not pay for a service that requires IE. I hope their customer service lines are flooded. It sounds like it is a total hassle to set up and download music, even if you do have IE. It is amazing that we are this far along in e-business, and companies still don't get it.
But thanks for the review, it was definitely worthwhile. I won't be using liquid.com any time soon.
Re:Thanks for the review (Score:3, Redundant)
Step in the wrong direction (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't have a Windows computer. This is not a step in the right direction. Before this service I had nothing. With this service I still have nothing, and there is one more pillar under the Microsoft monopoly.
Re:Step in the wrong direction (Score:3, Insightful)
But still, they went for the operating system that a vast majority of the people use and the browser that a vast majority of the people use on that operating system. Simply put, they went for the majority on this one.
And trust me, the RIAA doesn't want to help Microsoft any more than you do. Still, this is where IE as a browser has the advantage - everyone using Windows has it, and you don't have to send them off to download and use something else.
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
Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
As to will it work on *nix/Mac, didn't the original announcement of the service say that it was pc only initially? Plus with the problems the author had using a pc, hard to imagine they have it working on anything else yet.
Maybe a LITTLE better once kinks are worked out... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the problem that these media companies need to contend with. What people want is huge repositories of music for a fixed price that's easy to use, and without stupid DRM restrictions. The advantage that this has over Kazaa is that it's easy to find exactly what you are looking for, but being charged a $1+ per track and having to go through the DRM rigamarole, why would you bother?
Most everybody I know would be willing to pay anywhere between $10-40/month to get access to a huge music repository that they could use without burdensome restrictions. I currently subscribe to emusic for this reason, it's only drawback is that they tend not to have the newest albums. Maybe do a tiered pricing system where you get the back catalog for some more modest price and then you can sign up for a premium membership that will give you the newer music.
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the kind of service I have been wanting for a number of months now. There is now way that I'm going to install Windows, M$IE, and a Liquid Audio player just so that I can pay for music in a restricted and proprietary format. Why are they making things so complicated? They can offer their files for download over HTTP and it will work with any well-behaved web browser. Since the article mentioned that it is possible to burn the music on CD, what's the use of using a #$@#$@$# format like Liquid Audio? This is so much locking people into specific hardware and software that I can't view it as anything other than a plot by the Evil Forces to lure people with nice goodies and then squeeze the money and life out of them.
Just give me music that I can _play_ and I will pay for it, ok? It's really not that hard. No Crippled Discs, no weird-ass proprietary formats.
Re:Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why go through all that BS by going all the way to your local RecordStore where you'll pay a stupendously large amount of money for something as simple&cheap as a CD when it's so much easier to just download it from the Net for free?
OK I know....you're screwing the artists too...they should have public bank account numbers so people could donate some money to them...Their share is at most $2 per CD anyway (the standard CD price in Europe being more like $22)
Re:Why? (Score:3, Funny)
I decided to try that method, here's my experience.
First I could not find my keys. Eventually I found them under the couch. It's cold outside so I had to let the car run for about 5 minutes to get the ice off the windows. About half way to the mall I got stcuk behind a garbage truck that was leaking stuff out the back, it would not have been so bad but he was going like 15 MPH under the speed limit. Luckily though I noticed I was on E, I stopped at the Circle-K and waited in line for gas. Back on the road I eventually made it to the mall. We must be apporaching the holiday season because the mall was packed, I could only find a decent spot near Sears, which is no where near the epicenter of the mall where the record store is. Finally in the record store I could not find the CD I wanted. They had some selections but I did not want to pay $17.99 for one song that I liked out of 10 on the cd, too bad they did not have a method of picking and choosing songs I wanted. I paid my dues and set sail in my Chrysler for home. Traffic was a little worse heading in that direction but I had a cd player in my car, boy was I surprized when my new cd would not play in my car. The label said something about PC only and I could not find the official phillips cd logo. Oh well, maybe I can rip it to MP3 and play it my portable when I get home, I wonder what that the PC only means??
Yeah, your experience may not have been as bad but I think the author of the articles was not typical either. For the record, I like high quality recorded music, you will NOT get that in a compressed d/l, more so when it is converted from WMA to MP3. My kids are a different breed, my daughter would be more then happy to select and create her own 'CD' online for the same price if she could select the songs herself, she really likes the "Now xx" type of mix cd's and quality is not really an issue for her.
How could they know if you share the music? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd be interested to know how anybody could tell if you've shared the music and what this 'digital watermarking' is all about. If you made MP3s from the CD you make, how would UMG know you violated the copyright? Is my iTunes gonna email them when I play the pirated MP3?
This sounds dubious but will no doubt be tested by tons of people to see if it's true.
It also begs the question of what consititutes illegal sharing and fair use. Shouldn't I be able to listen to this stuff on my iPod? Would UMG know?
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.
Officer My PC was Hacked (Score:3, Funny)
Now, prove im lying.
In all seriousness this DID happen to me once... but all was done was they setup an IRC server.. but the point is still valid..
Re:How could they know if you share the music? (Score:4, Insightful)
I can envision people discovering the waremarking technology though. You and a friend register and download the same track, then run a binary diff on the files. Should be pretty easy to determine where the watermark is and change it though.
M@
Re:How could they know if you share the music? (Score:2)
Might as well just write the music and perform it yourself
Re:How could they know if you share the music? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep, this is called collusion in the literature, and it's been considered (even for the case of several users comparing their files). Lots of work has been put into developing codes that are immune to collusion in various ways. Examples include "identifiable parent property (IPP) codes," "traceability (TA) codes," and "collusion-secure codes."
The upshot is that it is provably impossible to construct collusion-secure codes unless they have very large "alphabets" or require lots of bits to be embedded in the media. Both situations are bad for the distributors, because watermarking technology is pretty inefficient in terms of how much raw data it needs to robustly embed marks.
I have a paper with some of these results on my webpage, if you're interested.
Re:How could they know if you share the music? (Score:2)
There's a good chance that the name on the credit card you have to use to purchase the music is real.
3) Here's a good defense - "Well, I downloaded the music onto my computer, but it just happened to be the folder that Kazaa uses for uploads. How was I to know?"
Ignorance is no defence. "My speedometer isn't working. How was I to know I was going twice the speed limit?"
Re:How could they know if you share the music? (Score:4, Interesting)
Emusic (Score:5, Interesting)
If I was going to go for any of these services (I'm not, yet) that would be my choice.
Re:Emusic (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Emusic (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not a musician (at least, I wouldn't call what I can squeeze out of a guitar music at this point), and I'm not a high-end audio geek. I do most of my music listening at my computer or on the bus with an MP3 CD player, or in my car. In those environments, there isn't much difference between 128kbps and 256kbps.
That said, when I do play MP3s through my stereo -- a ten-year-old mid-range Kenwood rack system -- 128kbps sounds pretty poor, 192kbps sounds fine if I'm not actively listening for MP3 artifacts, and 256kbps sounds as good as an uncompressed CD except in a few odd cases. I know people who claim to be able to detect the difference, but fortunately for me, my ears aren't that good, and frankly, CD-quality audio is overkill for the Sex Pistols anyway.
For $9.95 a month, and in my normal listening environments, eMusic [emusic.com] is a fabulous deal, and I hope they do well. I also hope they offer higher bitrates in the future, and I'd be willing to pay for it. In the meantime, being able to legally download a few dozen albums every night or two is really nice.
Re:Emusic (Score:2)
I'll pass thanks.
As long as you don't want a doggie bag? (Score:2)
I just spent 50 bucks on new releases (Score:2)
I can copy, rip, whatever I please. I'm willing to pay an extra 10 bucks per disc for a) good music and b) missing out on the hassle that you went through.
My time is certainly valuable. The only benefit of online downloading was saving me the 15 minute drive to the store. The downside is no cover art, no reliable copy, and no fun unwrapping process.
For those interested:
The Roots - Phrenology (w/ DVD)
Thievery Corporation - The Richest Man in Babylon
The Lenny White Collection
-Greg
Re:I just spent 50 bucks on new releases (Score:2)
I got a couple of Shonen Knife CDs, for $6 & $9, a High School Hellcats CD for $9, and a Die Cheerleader Die CD for $5.
Shonen Knife I got from half.com. A quick email to DCD & HSH and both setup paypal accounts so I wouldn't be forced to find envelopes & stamps.
Now that I think about it, I also recently purchased a new CD at Best Buy, so that *almost* brings me up to $50 (it was the new Johnny Cash CD, that old man rox u).
Windows and IE? (Score:5, Insightful)
You also need to use IE to open the URL in the e-mail that authenticate your tracks
The price is not the problem. The problem is what they allow you to do and what they don't. Next.
Re:Windows and IE? (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyone has their own standards. Nobody is arguing that we should take away the right to choose which standards to support. The argument is that if we do not embrace open standards, and instead either through apathy or indignance embrace proprietary ones just because they are the most prevalent, we will find ourselves locked into serving the whims of whoever developed that particular proprietary standard.
If you don't buy it, well, nobody's stopping you from embracing MSHTML. Just don't claim that supporting it is for the best of the whole community, and especially don't whine when MS locks you out with some proprietary upgrade or license change.
Let me get this straight... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let me get this straight... (Score:2)
Digital watermarking? (Score:3, Insightful)
And probably get their lawyers all excited with the possibility of DMCA-related charges.
When will they learn? (Score:5, Insightful)
He didn't mention it but I assume these are not cd quality audio files, unless I'm missing something here. So I'd pay a small amount to be able to download and manipulate files as I please (50 each maybe) but add all the DRM to those files and I'd pay less. It only makes sense considering you're crippling my downloads.
I guess it boils down to... why use this over kazaa/limewire/winMX etc. etc. etc...
Price Gouging? (Score:2, Insightful)
How is
If you think
The same goes for all the whiners about $16 or $20 CD's. If you think the company is making sooo much profit from this, then you damn better well be investing all your money in the industry, since it's such a profitable, sure thing business.
Personally, I think $.99 is extremely reasonable, given that I can't hardly buy a 20oz Coke for that much.
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:Price Gouging? (Score:3, Insightful)
Coke does well, but doesn't nearly get that kind of a markup on a 20 oz. Coke. Coke has to pay for manufacturing and trucking costs. The retailer that sells the product then has their own labor and real estate costs.
Re:Price Gouging? (Score:2, Insightful)
no disc, no case, no jacket with said case.
still a waste of money, IMO.
prolly as much profit as selling cd's in the store too.
it is a step in the proper direction though.
i wonder if browser masquerading fools the system into letting you use it with opera or whatever?
No thanks... (Score:3, Interesting)
Missing Con's (Score:5, Insightful)
Must remember to surf with IE rather than a browser you prefer.
Must remember to download tracks only while sitting on a machine with a CD-R or CD-RW
Must remember to never let your machine die or be replaced. If you do, you'll never be able to reburn the audio.
Thanks, I'll stick with Slamjamz [slamjamz.com]
Re:Missing Con's (Score:2)
Right there, in the review, he says:
And as for the 3rd: "Must remember to never let your machine die or be replaced. If you do, you'll never be able to reburn the audio."
Re:Missing Con's (Score:2)
Unless it's in the contract that you can, forever, sooner or later you won't.
Re:Missing Con's (Score:2)
IIRC, Window XP allows only a limited number of hardware swaps. Given that, then the user had better get a supported hardware config sooner rather than later. Hopefully these guys will be able and permitted to expand their range of support hardware and software.
Begining of the end for mass p2p sharing? (Score:4, Insightful)
The pricepoint is a little higher than what I'd like to see, but this is definitely a step in the right direction for the music industry. Kudos to them for actually trying to solve the p2p "problem" by giving consumers (almost) what they want instead of trying to lock down every electronic device. It may be a clumsy interface, but it seems like a good first stab at a compromise between consumers' fair use rights and copyright holder interests.
Re:Begining of the end for mass p2p sharing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Begining of the end for mass p2p sharing? (Score:2)
What the RIAA wants to hold on to is the mega $$$ they are making by selling CDs without any added benefits (DVDs including music videos, extra tracks, etc. etc.) and keeping the same profits. Sorry guys, times change, even kodak realized traditional film and camera are no longer the money maker and they adapted. For a big successful business, these guys really have no clue.
Ogg Vorbis (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ogg Vorbis (Score:3, Insightful)
So, let me get this straight...you are proposing to convert WMA->WAV->OGG to get rid of a watermark that supposedly *cough* doesn't have any influence on the music itself....and think you'll get a result that even resembles digital quality audio?
Not likely....
Btw. the first problem is that you got to have IE ofcourse...I have finally (after several years) deleted Windows entirely (after not using the partition for months and finally needing the space :), so I can't use IE, not to mention WMA files.
Re:Ogg Vorbis (Score:2)
i don't think you need ps2 to buy those songs, you need ie though.
Re:Ogg Vorbis (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, as the reviewer chose the Liquid Audio site, I thought that would mean that they would provide the tracks in LiquidAudio format, but it's WMA? When I try to listen to or buy a track on their site, it seems to suggest that the tracks are in LiquidAudio format.
For general downloading or purchasing music online, I personally would avoid Liquid altogether. WMA/Real are acceptable as a last resort. MP3s are better than either WMA, Liquid, or Real. OGG would be the best of the lossy formats. However, couldn't they at least provide SHN or FLAC files? The SHN files I've downloaded from Archive.org[Etree] [archive.org] and recompressed into FLACs generally get about 2:1 compression. That's not bad considering they are lossless, "CD-quality." Please note that my mini-review of the formats is NOT based on quality. I've checked out the OGG listening test at vorbis.com and could hear no difference in the files. My preferences are mostly based on ease-of-use. MP3, OGG, FLAC and SHN are easier to use from my current computer to any other computers I may have in the future.
Maybe the general populace doesn't care enough about the quality of music on their PCs. So far, they've been able to get it all for free. However, when they start to be able to pay a bit for a downloadable song, they will (hopefully) demand more of their online music store. (e.g. They'll demand that it be like their brick and mortar music store, but online).
And, where are the liner notes? Lossy music, crappy software, no artwork?! Uhh.. Some of my parents' old vinyl records have really neat artwork on them. It's as though, as production costs have decreased, so has the product quality.
Not that I think the music that these companies churn out is always that great, but there are certainly lots of intelligent people working behind the scenes that know how to market a product well. Where are they?
Here's what I mean WRT the marketing: I know people here love to make fun of Microsoft (what would a Slashdot story be, without Microsoft?) but, honestly, if you can find it, watch the "Ray of Light" commercial for WinXP where people jump and jump and eventually take off and are flying around. It's horribly hokey and easy to make fun of, but they really make you WANT Windows XP. Not that I think: "Ohh, if I had Windows XP, I'd fly!" but they make you think that it's actually going to give you the freedom that you always thought it would. Please read the word "think" with emphasis
Watermarking? (Score:5, Insightful)
End of P2P (Score:5, Funny)
Holy cow!!! That's way too easy! At this rate, it sounds like they're going to have Kazaa and all the other P2P file sharing programs on the run in just a couple of months.
I guess that when we threw down the gauntlet and said "Ok, Music Companies, let's see some real innovation and get an easy to use, cheap, my-mom-could-use-it service for music" they went and did their homework. I bet my mom's already signed up, downloaded lots of tracks (on 56k), failed to burn copies, downloaded all the different players (again 56k), tried burning her music with them and failed, called support, copied the tracks to her other computer, failed to burn again, contacted support again, redownloaded the tracks again (56k, remember), and finally got them to burn so she could listen to them in her car.
It's that easy. Wow.
Does the BBC know? (Score:2, Funny)
Does the BBC know?
cheers
front
Great for windows users ... but (Score:2)
I use Linux on all my boxen. No MAC user will be able to use this either as it requires DRM stuff.
Of course as they say.. if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem.
Suicide (Score:2)
Technology Preview? (Score:3, Interesting)
What kills it for me (but then again I'm probably not in the majority they are targetting) is the requirement of Windows 2k/XP and Windows media player...
Well its not like I'm downloading MP3s left and right anyways. Most of my music is bought at a store or via one of them music clubs...(Where you can get like 11 CD for 1 cent, so long as you buy 4 more at regular price in 2 years time...which if you play smart you can gets tons of CDs cheap, assuming you dont need the latest release)
Maybe by the time I get a broadband connection, these services will use a more open standard format, and the service will be a lot more flexible.
A price reduction would be nice, would encourage people to buy the songs the like from a website instead of leeching off gnutella or [insert favorite file sharing client/server here].
50 cents a song sounds good to me
Maybe they can come up with better pricing though.
Hey I can get 4x6 photo prints of my digital photos for 50 cents from Kodak online services!
(Well yeah shipping is like $2.99 though hehe)
UMG Artists and Emusic (Score:5, Informative)
Perfect for Apple (Score:3, Insightful)
Except for Windows and IE ... (Score:4, Funny)
I'll mark you as a freind (Score:2)
Thanks
Why not just buy the cd? (Score:4, Interesting)
some good sites to find cheap prices :
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.
Music Royalties (Score:2, Interesting)
This is news for who? (Score:4, Insightful)
This service needs IE, WMA, and a Windows Box? It won't work under my MacIntosh, Linux, or Home Entertainment system(s)? The songs won't work in my car, walkman or the kids boom-box?
Well maybe this is news I can use. I know I won't be using my disposable income on this service.
Enjoy,
Cost? Quality?? (Score:4, Insightful)
You do say there is watermarking... which listening tests have shown is subtle, but still audible, so you're already at a loss of quality here.
Also, for cost - popular tracks as high as $1.50, regulars for a dollar... Let's just pick a currently popular, common CD, like The Eminem Show...
20 tracks (though, 5 of those are skits, which you said you're not able to get...) - really 15 audio tracks... At a dollar each, that's 15 dollars. At a dollar each for most, plus $1.50 for the current singles (White America, Cleaning Out My Closet, Soldier, Without Me, Hailie's Song, What You Say) is 18 dollars.
Now, my local Newbury Comics is selling this same album for $14.99 (and with a coupon from the Sunday paper, I can knock 3 dollars off of that).
So, I can either tie up my cable modem and 'puter and download a watermarked, questionable quality version for 15-18 dollars, or I can pay 12 for the original, plus the non-music tracks.
I'm sorry, but I really don't see what the point is...
Of course, say I don't want all of those songs, but five from this album, and five from the previous, and five from the one before that... Then, there is a savings, but it's so miniscule - I'd be getting the popular singles off each album, so at 15 tracks * $1.50, I'd be paying $22.50... and if I bought the albums, either on sale or used, I'd be paying no more than $25-30... and get a bunch of tracks I'd never have heard otherwise that I might like. Plus, 3 separate booklets, liner notes, etc.
There's no way they're going to attract people from P2P sharing if their chosen method is slower, more expensive, and of questionable quality.
-T
DRM *AND* Watermarking? (Score:2)
The DRM thing is stupid, though, considering that once I jump through your hoops I can record it to Red Book/CDDA. Just sell it to me through an SSL-encrypted connection and shove the files at me.
What about the artists? (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't intended to be a troll or flamebait post.
One of the issues that surrounds the music industry is the way that large record labels treat the artists who have signed with them.
Now a record company has suddenly made it (more or less) convenient to download songs legally, and as soon as it gets easy, the ol' consumer mentality will kick back in and the artists will end up forgotten.
The artists won't be thought of, just like most people don't really think about the sweatshop laborers in foreign countries who make clothing, or code cheap software, assemble appliances, etc. Give us what we want, and give it to us cheap. To hell with the people who have to work to produce the lifestyle we get to take advantage of.
*sigh*
The music industry isn't really upset that you're copying copyrighted material. They're upset that you're no longer a consumer. They want you to consume their services, and if they re-work their existing services in a manner so the production costs are cheaper than current costs, but still charge you the same and still screw over the recording artists, then they see it as a major win.
Maybe I'll get lucky and someone will reply and tell me why UMG isn't as bad as the others.
pros and cons about my little store around ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Service:
there's a real nice looking girl and she knows a great deal about music.
Prices:
It's much cheaper than your service as I can find whole CDs between 1 and 3 euros. Yes, they are used, but it's because the shop re-buy from its customers. They are as perfect as new ones. You can buy new CDs at regular price also. People are not doing it to rip them since the shop existed before cd writers.
CDs:
I'm not limited to one company, as a matter of facts I'm not limited at all since they sell all kind of music from all kind of compagnies from all countries.
Choice:
There's another shop just the same 30 meters away. Only there isnt a nice looking girl there.
CONS:
half an hour of subway.
At least they're nice about it (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, the ability to easily burn them to CDs, despite the lack of DVD support, is a nice feature. I can even forgive the digital watermarking: it's my music to listen to (as I bought a license), but the content still belongs to the company, and giving it out in a easy-to-steal format is against their best interests. I'm all for free music, but this doesn't seem unreasonable.
The only fear I have is in the verification: what is the music file doing to check authentication, and is that exposing my computer or I to unique identification by some third party company or group? Or does the link just add something to my registry and check locally? All in all, this isn't reason enough to avoid at least giving it a try, as driving to a record store costs half as much as a cd itself.
Mozilla support would be nice, too.
Biggest Problem With These Services (Score:2)
So much for iPod support.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, I know that Apple is obviously the Big Evil One to Hollywood because they allow *gasp* MP3's by default with iTunes, but come on, people.
I want to see a song I like.
I want to pay $1 or $2 for said song.
I want to either put song on a music CD (they can mail me the CD, I don't mind), or put the song right on my iPod.
This should not be difficult. But it is - because the music company is so concerned with *their* wants rather than *my* wants.
And I'm even willing to pay for it. Go figure.
My experience w/Liquid (Score:4, Interesting)
For some time I was looking for an obscure CD called "The Great Game" by Brother Sun Sister Moon (now called Luminous for their second release). Impossible to find on CD, and impossible to find on peer to peer networks (except one track as noted below, which helped get me hooked) I looked on. But it was on Liquid Audio, and despite my reservations about a proprietary file format, I plunked down the $10 for the entire digital album.
Download: There were problems downloading. As in the Liquid player crashed during download didn't recognize that the album had been partially downloaded (files were not there), and didn't let me re-download the missing files. Cleared up by customer service.
Audio quality: decent. I think I've read that the Liquid Audio is really mp3 @ 192kbps inside their "secure" wrapper.
Compatiblity: Bad. I use WinAmp, and hardly ever listened to the Liquid tracks because I couldn't listen to them in WinAmp.
Portability: Disappointing. Only playable on the machine you download them to without a MS Passport, or something like that.
Burnability: Good, once I got a CD-R drive in the computer I downloaded them to.
Security: Puzzling. What good is distributing music in "secure" files when the Liquid Audio software lets you burn them to an unprotected CD format? I ripped then of course into mp3 format (using a very high bitrate to avoid as much as possible problems with recompressing already compressed audio) and the results are not bad. Now I can listen to them in WinAmp! (nearly every day)
(btw, in case anyone out there is an Information Society fanatic, Paul Robb is one half of BSSM/Luminous. Definately worth checking out. The one song that I found on p2p was Bangkok, off some movie soundtrack if you want to have a listen first.)
Watermarking sounds easily defeated.. (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
From my understanding, a "watermarked" audio stream is one where identifying information is included in an imperceivable portion of the audio stream.
Given that lossy encoders (MP3, OGG) use psychoacoustic-models to reduce data in the audio stream that it considers outside of the human audible range, wouldn't encoding to MP3 or OGG damage or destroy the watermarking?
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:An Alternative View on this Service (Score:3, Insightful)
Tell them to get back to me when I can download using Windows/Opera in mp3/ogg and burn with Nero. This one is not about price, but about convienience. They've got a bit to go there, spending an hour or more to get mp3s out of it is not my idea of fun.
Kjella
This really ought to be simple. (Score:5, Insightful)
So this thing comes out. You can download music off the internet now, and it's legal! It's not ridiculously priced, but there are problems-- it's not
The question becomes, then: Were people interested in digital music that they didn't have to go to a CD store to get? Or were they interested in
I suspect that, particularly since the
So, if you're a record company, how should you go after a piece of that action?
Well, let's look at p2p programs. Say you want the latest track from Foo, called Bar. You ask for bar on the p2p client. You get back 142 responses. Now, of these 142 responses, 100 were bogus entries trying to get you to download their porno virus spam. 30 are busy and won't talk to you now, 5 have something completely bogus, 5 are people on the wrong end of a 14.4 modem, and two actually have what you want and open slots to download it, but one of those has it at 96 kilobits.
Now, if I haven't made it sufficient of a hint, perhaps the proper way to sell digital music online is to
a) Sell people
b) Make a reliable service to get them in good quality so you don't have to sort through 142 options to find the one that actually has what you want and will disconnect you halfway through the download anyhow.
How do you make money selling something that's free? Make it convenient. You can offer people both of those things and still get as much money for them.
-JDF
Re:well, atleast the customer service seemed nice (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, but isn't the whole point that this is a _legal_ way of attaining the music. So first the excuse was that the music was too expensive, now it's that it isn't quite convenient enough?
Re:well, atleast the customer service seemed nice (Score:2)
Audio isn't a Ferarri (Score:3, Interesting)
It costs a lot of money to build a Ferrari, and only a couple cents to press a CD. With this service, that cost actually goes up. (Contrary to popular opinion, large chunks of bandwidth ain't cheap.)
The biggest cost should be paying the salaries of the music company (Which only needs to be a few executives and a good team of technicians, not the bloated beuracracy you normally saw in the 90s and, to some extent, today.), and then maybe fifteen or twenty cents (per track) for the artist.
Even if the artist only sells a mere 1,00,000 tracks, (more likely, considering unwanted tracks will no longer be a deterrant from buying an album), that's still $150,000. For more popular artists, or artists who'd rather release better stuff, but less often, you could raise that by ten cents and they'd have $250,000 to hold them over while they produce their next batch.
At this point, even niche artists make a good living, while consumers pay only a fraction of the cost they pay now.
Re:well, atleast the customer service seemed nice (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Too expensive? (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately,
(1) The RIAA isn't fully allowing a free market, because of price fixing, and
(2) Consumers may decide that the only price they can bear is "free" -- in other words, that they'll be happy downloading music so long as it's somebody else that already paid for it. If very few people are willing to pay, then the marketing machines can no longer survive. This might be good for artists that are already famous and don't need much publicity, but otherwise... *shrug*