Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Music Media The Almighty Buck

Australia Gets Its Own Legal Music Site 90

Posted by Hemos from the striking-deals-abroad dept.
nfras writes "News Ltd is carrying a story about how Australia's largest (and government owned) telco has done a deal with Warner Music to sell music online. It will use Windows Media format and will be similar in pricing to US sites."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Australia Gets Its Own Legal Music Site More

Australia Gets Its Own Legal Music Site

Comments Filter:

  • Waltzing Matilda (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 13, 2003 @09:22AM (#7198589)
    The bad news, they are only offering versions of "Waltzing Matilda", Mad Max theme songs, and "Beds are Burning" by the Midnight Oils. "Men at Work" are still holding out on the contract.
    • and see how far you get.

  • Billing (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cwernli ( 18353 ) on Monday October 13, 2003 @09:28AM (#7198597) Homepage

    [...] with the cost added to users' internet service bill [...]

    There's a lesson to be learned here: large ISPs offering their "own" services can handle micropayments easily. And it's a lot safer than using credit cards.

  • Very Good (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cubicledrone ( 681598 ) on Monday October 13, 2003 @09:31AM (#7198600)
    These are all good announcements because it means there will be more competition, lower prices and higher quality. The music will get better too as more bands start distributing electronically.

    Oh, and Apple has now sold TEN million songs from iTunes.
    • I can only assume that you are not an Australian, as the statement "competition, lower prices and higher quality" has never applied to Telstra.

      I think it highly unlikely that this will have any affect, except to make Telstra more money.
    • Think about it. One of the major benefits accrued from use of the internet is the ability to take music distribution out of the hands of large corporations.

      With cost of production and distribution relatively minimal as they now are, there is little justification for parasitical companies being able to take a free ride on artists' talent.

      I find it hard to believe that Telstra's involvement is going to improve anything. It is far more likely to promote the lowest common denominator.

    • It's not a good announcement for people like me who dislike Microsoft, and will never again run Windows on a personal machine.

      Until they use open formats like MPEG-Layer III or OGG, I'm not buying into it.

      SORRY! They can take their Windows Media and shove it.
      • Try this [yoo-play.com] then.

        Free music from Candlebox (KMHW now) and the band gets royalties from sales of the product.

        Now THAT'S a cool model. All 192kbps MP3 too.
    • more competition, lower prices and higher quality.

      If Tel$tra has anything to do with it, we will see less competition, rediculously high prices, and the music will end up sounding like that disabled guy bashing the piano while you're on call waiting.

      After all, the ACCC accuses Tel$tra repeatedly of doing a crappy job and maintaining its monopoly using unfair trading practices, such as selling wholesale ADSL access to third parties for more than it retails to its own private customers. Tel$tra is the

  • Comfort and customer service (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Compact Dick ( 518888 ) on Monday October 13, 2003 @09:32AM (#7198603) Homepage
    The levels of copyright protection afforded by the service were "at a level where we are very comfortable with it," he said.
    Sure, he is comfortable. But what about the consumer?

    No thanks, I'll pass. WMA format and all.
  • Of course this has to happen just after I have left bigpond for a cheaper ISP
  • Does anyone know when the Googlecache will appear?

    As for the music site itself, I suspect it will last until pressure from U.S. companies forces it to either start raising prices or using DRM. I would be surprised if it managed to take off like iTunes.

  • Why WMA? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tessaiga ( 697968 ) on Monday October 13, 2003 @09:39AM (#7198617)
    Tracks will be available in the Microsoft-developed .wma format. The levels of copyright protection afforded by the service were "at a level where we are very comfortable with it," he said.
    I just can't understand the insistance of so many online music retailers to go with WMA instead of a more popular and widespread format like MP3. It can't be because of a fear of pirating -- this isn't going to help keep new (downloadable) music from Kazaa and the like because there are still too many simple ways to circumvent it, starting with looping your analog output back into your line input, and all it takes is a few people to realize this before the music gets out "into the wild".

    In the meantime, it's just one more annoyance for their paying customers. Old mp3 players tend not to support WMA, and there's also the distastefulness of your music being tied to a Microsoft proprietary format, which have a tendency to have backward-compatibility issues (ever try migrating Office documents between versions?) and to be changed without much customer input. Given these issues, I don't think their security would suffer much by going with mp3, and it would be a good selling point for their legit customers. All in all, I see this as an annoying trend towards a business model where companies continue to try to impose their controls on things you've already paid for, rather than just letting you have full use of your purchases after you've forked over your cash.

    • Re:Why WMA? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Erasmus Darwin ( 183180 )
      "It can't be because of a fear of pirating -- this isn't going to help keep new (downloadable) music from Kazaa and the like because there are still too many simple ways to circumvent it, starting with looping your analog output back into your line input"

      Yes, but it's still an extra hassle. If a user has to go through all that trouble just to share their music on Kazaa, they're less likely to bother. At the very least, the music isn't going to get auto-shared when the user first installs Kazaa and gives

      • Why WMA? Probably so they can suck up to M$ and so they can claim they're using a more secure format if anyone yells at them.
        • "Probably so they can suck up to M$ and so they can claim they're using a more secure format if anyone yells at them."

          I think they're also looking for the equivalent of a fence. In the real world, a fence isn't going to stop anyone from getting on to your property. Almost anyone who's determined can climb it in 10 seconds or so. But it does serve to make it clear that the person has taken an active role in breaching the token security.

      • If anything, a slight reduction in the ease with which AOLers can share the songs increases efficiency. Now, instead of 50 rips from clueless users, there'll be 5 rips from smart ones. The internet is big enough that even if it does require analog loopback, somebody will put it up. Besides, Ogg streams have serial numbers. So by changing the serial number for each download (rudimentary watermarking), they'd also be able to reduce P2P efficiency.

        To the grandparent, the biggest reason for WMA is limitat

        • "Now, instead of 50 rips from clueless users, there'll be 5 rips from smart ones."

          Except that the problem they're trying to avoid is having the authorized version treated as a single, popular, high-quality rip.

          "Besides, Ogg streams have serial numbers. So by changing the serial number for each download (rudimentary watermarking), they'd also be able to reduce P2P efficiency."

          That's a good point. The only downside is that it isn't that hard to make P2P software ignore meta-data when determining which

      • "Yes, but it's still an extra hassle. If a user has to go through all that trouble just to share their music on Kazaa, they're less likely to bother."

        Yeah, and if there's the extra hassle of not being able to use the downloaded music the way they want to, they are less likely to bother signing up for the service.
    • Even mp3 is bad in this case.

      When I buy music I want CD quality at least (unless prices are smaller by the same factor as the file size).
      • When I buy music I want CD quality at least

        There aren't too many recordings around that are much better than CD. Sure, there is Burr-Brown, but I wouldn't say that was common.

        Correct me if I'm wrong and hopelessly out of date (please)...

      • "When I buy music I want CD quality at least (unless prices are smaller by the same factor as the file size)."

        I'd never pay money, now, for any lossy-format. With a lossless format, I can re-encode to the next new and improved lossy format myself, with a lossy format, it's going to mean re-purchasing the music in the new lossy format, for decent sound quality.

    • I just can't understand the insistance of so many online music retailers to go with WMA instead of a more popular and widespread format like MP3.

      Because the DRM is what the music industry wants, not what the music store wants. If they could sell you unlicensed MP3s, they probably would. But the copyright holders want control over the files THEY offer the music stores, so some DRM is implanted to give it. It's not flawless, but it's better than nothing.
    • I just can't understand the insistance of so many online music retailers to go with WMA instead of a more popular and widespread format like MP3. It can't be because of a fear of pirating....

      Of course it's the fear of pirating!

      This is for sale in Australia. If an Australian pirates music and you convict him, where could you send him?!

      (That is, until we have a penal colony on the moon [cyberhaven.com].)

  • INTER-net (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jaavaaguru ( 261551 ) on Monday October 13, 2003 @09:43AM (#7198624) Homepage
    I do wish people would stop opening these sites and saying that only people from one particular country are allowed to use them. What happened to the Internet being an International resource?

    • Re:INTER-net (Score:2, Insightful)

      by GigsVT ( 208848 )
      When you have to comply with the laws of every country and state you do business in, you tend to keep things simpler by limiting your market.

    • What happened to the Internet being an International resource?

      It got popular. Popular things get attention from businesses and the government. It was inevitable that the slippery slope of nationalism would invade the Internet like it has in the real world. It's sad really.

    • Hrm (Score:3)

      by mcc ( 14761 )
      The Internet may be an International Resource, but copyright varies wildly from country to country, and the copyrights and distribution rights for music, in particular, tend to be owned by completely different entities depending on which country you're in.

    • I do wish people would stop opening these sites and saying that only people from one particular country are allowed to use them.

      That's all well and good, but there's the matter of dealing with legal issues for every country you support, financial issues such as currency, and (if you ship a physical product) customs, shipping contracts to different parts of the world, etc. Not to mention that they probably only got the deal with Warner for use in Australia.

    • Wouldn't that be almost like free trade?

      Good luck!

  • We get that in Europe too. It means "More expensive than..."

  • Yes, you've heard this before (Score:4, Interesting)

    by orthogonal ( 588627 ) on Monday October 13, 2003 @09:46AM (#7198632) Journal
    Not to beat a dead horse, but the proprietary windows format doesn't play on my portable MP3 player. And it ties me to Windows in a way I don't want to be tied. (Speaking of dead horses, Slashdot's been moving about as fast as one for the last week.)

    But this you probably haven't heard before, from the linked article:
    Telstra says BigPond Music will become Australia's largest music download site. Single tracks and albums will be available for download in early December, and will not count towards broadband download caps.


    Yes, it probably will become Australia's largest (legal) download site, because Telestra BigPond will be both music vendor and ISP. In a triumph of vertical integration, users will continue to have download limits for Telestra's competitors, but will be able to "avoid" extra charges (which I'm sure will be built into the price of the music) for Telestra's own music site.

    Now I know that download limits, and extra charges to go beyond those limits are pretty much unavoidable in Oz, but it strikes me as anti-competitve to lift those lmits for the ISPs favored affiliates.

    And I worry that if this is succesful in Oz, we'll begin to see it elsewhere: high speed big pipes, for example, connecting AOL's users to Time Warner's offerings, and -- what an unfortunate coincidence! -- crappy connections outside the AOL-Time Warner group of companies. Or, no download limits between, perhsps, Verizon and eBay, but don't expect the same quality of connection, to, oh, Slashdot.

    Of course, this will all be put over as "special benefits to our customers", providing "expeditetd access to the most requested web sites", but it's a short step from "special relationship" to the ISP turning its customers into another commodity to be rented -- "we have 10 million eyes with 5 million credit cards" to the highest bidding affiliate.
    • and will not count towards broadband download caps.

      That's the only way they can sell it, given Telstra's ridiculously low bandwidth limits. A number of Australian providers are reselling exactly the same service (on the same lines) at cheaper rates, with vastly higher download limits.

  • They already had legal ways to get music online.

    One of them is called "Independent musicians who want you to download their music from websites".

    And another is called P2P networks, which the recording industry didn't manage to get shut down, and despite all the noise they make, still haven't managed to show as being illegal in a court of law.
  • It sounds like our favorite telco monopoly is trying to diversify, or maybe just squash more smaller isps of of the market.

    where everyone else whos not in the US or with telstra cannot reach this "new, wonderful, legal and fair" way of buying music... pity, I'll have to stay with kazaa
  • Downloads of music DVDs may also eventually be offered as the level of broadband penetration increases, he said. "There's no reason why that wouldn't translate online as well"

    Telstra are doing everything they can to SLOW broadband takeup in australia, yet they're basing business decisions on selling a product that REQUIRES it?

    They're still clueless.
  • It might only cost the same for the song as the US, but by the time you have paid the extortionate Aus bandwidth rate it would be cheaper to buy the CD :o(
    • Artical says that d/l would not contribute to broadband limits (as long as you are with Tel$tra BigPONG - then again unless you are with telstra you could not use the service, as they cannot bill you though your BigPONG account!) just another monopoly wiping out the little guy

  • Typo (Score:4, Informative)

    by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Monday October 13, 2003 @10:09AM (#7198730) Homepage

    They're not selling, they're renting. See Microsoft's example of Subscription Models [microsoft.com] for why.

  • Its only 51% government owned, soon to be sold off.

  • Restrictions (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ffrinch ( 586802 )
    It'll be interesting to see what kind of restrictions are on the files.

    Australian copyright law is fairly draconian compared to the US, and doesn't allow "backup" copies of music, videos etc, only some software.

    If they provide an iTunes-esque scheme that allows the tracks to be burned to CD and played across multiple computers, consumers will actually have more legal rights with their downloaded tracks than they do with real CDs.
  • I think t e problem is that all these deals are the big multinational labels holding the reins on the distribution of the future. The vibrant underground scene gets a tiny look in but the real money goes to the usual suspects...

    Not sure what the alternative is except maybe some way of networking all the little labels up using the internet. At least that way they can get a presence and make enough money to continue to survive...

  • Only 51% of it belongs to the Commonwealth, the rest of it is listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. Well for the time being anyway...

  • When are online music companies going to figure out the people are not interested in using the Windows Media Format for their music? Does anyone out in Slashdot land use anything besides MP3 and OGG?
  • A website dedicated *exclusively* to the service of converting media from X to X.

    I will never. Ever. Use WMA for music.
  • What's Austrailia?
  • A manufacturing plant has opened in Australia making and selling cars that only turn left.

    The MVAA (Motor Vehicle Association of Australia) praised the move, saying that once they can stomp out fully fuctional cars then consumers will have no choice but to buy the crippled crap we'd rather sell them.

    -
  • HMV, which I realise is an international, has teamed [wiredrecords.com] up with Wired Records to give Aussies a digital music download service, that certainly doesn't look all that "new". Wired Records is based in Australia as well, which I think is great for the local business.

    It's good to see something finally happening in Australia only soon after it takes off overseas (rather than a several year wait, a-la cable internet).
  • I can't believe they chose WMA... what a bad move. There's no way I'd pay to own a WMA file. I would really would like to know what the rationale was behind this decision. I'm sure lots of $$$ of incentives form a certain software company was involved.

  • Downloads of commercial music for a fee with specific licensing and DRM restrictions is just a subset of legal music downloads. Last I checked, the Open Music Registry [openmusicregistry.org] (and Narcopop [narcopop.com], and Common Content [commoncontent.org]) were all "legal music sites" that Aussies can use just like anyone else in the world.

    Don't buy into and/or support the notion that commercialized music is the only music available. When you see this sort of nonsense in the media, at least take time to write to the publisher to comment on it. I have.

  • Unless telstra have also struck a deal with Micrsoft, why on earth would they use wma? I mean, theres far more support on just about every OS for mp3... I thought if you had a product, you'd want as many people to be able to use it.

    I know people that perfer wma, and i have no doubt that its good, but the OS support for mp3 overwhealms wma doesnt it? Seems a little silly. I wont by wma, but if it was mp3, i would have thought about it. My entire collection is mp3, and i have no intention of converting.

Slashdot Top Deals

Math is like love -- a simple idea but it can get complicated. -- R. Drabek

Close