Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Music Media

Audio Lunchbox: Music with no DRM 322

Posted by michael from the tanstaaflb dept.
An anonymous reader writes "MacCentral just posted an article on Audio Lunchbox, an online music store dedicated to music by independent artists and labels. ALB offers all of its music in DRM free MP3 (192 kbps) and Ogg Vorbis (Q6) formats with iTunes style pricing and a completely web based and platform independent delivery system."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Audio Lunchbox: Music with no DRM More

Audio Lunchbox: Music with no DRM

Comments Filter:

  • $0.99 ?? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by strictnein ( 318940 ) *
    Am I the only one not busting a nut at the chance of paying $0.99 to download one song? Or $9.99 to download an album? To me this is hardly an improvement over current pricing. Maybe it's just that the stuff I listen to isn't typically available (live trance sets) but I really can't see paying much more than $0.25 for a single downloadble track. Maybe $0.50 if I really enjoyed the artist.

    • Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Looks like it's the attack of the idiot moderators again. A story about a online store that, along with not using DRM, sells tracks for $1 and full CDs for $10 comes onto slashdot. Someone comments on how he (she?) finds those prices too high. The post is then marked as offtopic. This is very strange.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • $0.99 PLUS you're paying for electricity, computer, bandwidth, AND you to put your time in downloading each track.

        For a buck a track I want some nice artwork, maybe some printed lyrics a piece of plastic that I can out into a player. That way I can rip the songs myself and CHOOSE what bitrate to use.

        Some occasional free posters and stickers would be nice too. Music buying has sucked since the death of the 12" vinyl album. Consumers are getting less and less while paying more and more, and record compani

      • Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Krondor ( 306666 )
        I'm not suggesting that it's as hard to make an album as it is to write a book but there's at least as much creative talent at work here

        .99 cent song downloads aren't an album it's a song. It's like 99 cents for a chapter of a book. I won't argue the crateive talent at work (except by pop stars that don't do their own work, oh those unsung studio musicians), but I do think that 99 cents is a bit high. Although if it is actually good I would pay that. I do like how single song downloads would make art

        • Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by the_consumer ( 547060 ) <slash@@@smitty...mailshell...com> on Friday March 19, 2004 @03:23PM (#8613803) Homepage
          You are a cheap bastard. For fucks sake, it costs at least 50 cents to listen to a song on a jukebox, and you only get to listen to it once! This way, you own the song forever. You can make copies for your different devices, share 'em with your friends if you want, and you can buy whole albums for $9.99, which is a bargain compared to the cost of CDs. Plus, the artists aren't getting screwed.

      • Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Zardoz44 ( 687730 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:30PM (#8613209) Homepage
        Please don't bring books and intellectual property into this. Of the $40 for a new hardcover, you're paying about $3-5 for the author. The rest goes to the publisher for actually printing the book with good paper, good ink, etc.., and shipping the books to the bookstores and so forth.

        The reason people download music and not books is that it is cheaper and easier to download and burn to a CD. If you buy a hardcover for $40, you're paying $35 for the medium, not the content.

        With peer to peer, the medium has been made enormously cheap. Why are we paying $.99 for a track (equivalent to store prices) when their distribution costs are all but eliminated (bandwidth + servers are much cheaper than stores, staff, shipping, and packaging).

        • Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by jfengel ( 409917 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @03:35PM (#8613950) Homepage Journal
          There's even more than paper and bookstores. A lot of other people go into writing a book. My book, which goes for about $40, had an editor, a copy editor, a typesetter, an indexer, an artist for the cover, and a small army of reviewers who received honoraria. The postage alone when we were doing the final phases of reviewing ran into the hundreds of dollars. In the end, yeah, I get about five bucks a copy.

          Mind you, this is a technical book from a major reputable publisher (Addison-Wesley), so it got the luxe treatment. Fiction would get a different treatment.

        • Here is why... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by uqbar ( 102695 )
          Yes, but you still need to record, mix and master the music. This requires the use of expensive equipment and spaces.

          While some of you probably think the mastering stuff that comes with protools is swell (even though you are mastering in your bedroom over cheapo Genelec monitors) and even though you think you can use SM57's and built in preamps for recording everything, generally consumers like music that is recorded in a sonically well-architected environment by a talented engineer, mixed in a equally go

      • Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by rjelks ( 635588 )
        Artists need to be compensated, but I agree with the parent poster. The value we get from a single track != $.99. I think what bothers me about it is the mp3 is intangeble. If I went to the used CD store and spent 8 bucks on a CD, I'd have something I could resell if I got sick of it. If I download, say a whole album, for $9.99, I can't transfer ownership to anyone else. It seems like downloading songs is more like a service than purchasing a product. Don't get me wrong, I love the mp3 format, but I t

      • Um, bullshit.. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by msimm ( 580077 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:49PM (#8613449) Homepage
        A) Most of the independent artists that will be available through sites like this are NOT RIAA artists.

        B) While $.99 may be necessary to cover the cost of Marketing Blitzes, Big Budget Studio time, Advertising, Printing and Distributing an album to your local record store, I think its feasible that independent artist spend considerably less on promotion and 'the machine'. If everyone adopts prices that don't reflect the actual costs involved in bringing the music to market we just end up with a new version of the old system. A lot of artist still are focused on GETTING THEIR MUSIC HEARD so this whole money argument is marketing talk as far as I'm concerned.

        Industry music may be a different story, but I love and am VERY familiar with independent music and artists. I've got no trouble with sending 10 bucks off to support an artist I like, but I usually get a fancy printed album and what-not that added a little more value. If a download (of a 192 bit track?) is going to cost some money, fine, just don't charge me as much as you would for a CD, after all, its not the same thing.
      • No way will I pay a buck a track to download music from an RIAA org or one of their offshore, affiliated orgs. No matter how many times I listen to Pink or Alicia Keyes or Outkast, my feeling is they have enough money and I'll miss it a hell of a lot more than they will.

        That said, if Outkast were not on a major label, and if they had a place where I could buy merchandise - whether it be cds or other "stuff" - I probably would throw some bucks their way. Maybe so with Pink as well, although probably not wit

    • Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:5, Informative)

      by syphax ( 189065 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:09PM (#8612949) Journal
      If you want non-brand-name music for $0.25 a song, try http://www.emusic.com, which offers 40 songs for $10 a month. It used to be unlimited, but they cut back awhile ago.

      You have to hunt for the good stuff, but overall, Emusic isn't bad. No DRM, either.

      • Re:$0.99 and Emusic (Score:2, Informative)

        by mrondello ( 261386 )
        To add to the emusic idea.

        After looking at the Punk and Rock sections of the audio lunchbox offering. Emusic has a very large number of those releases that are being offered at cheaper rates. Not to mention the site design and features are much better. I don't think the audio lunchbox people even started to look at an effcient site design. So far browsing it has been akin to pulling teeth.

        Emusic also does not use DRM. Their files are "alt-preset standard" LAME encoded mp3s.

        For anyone looking for indepe

      • Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:5, Informative)

        by orthogonal ( 588627 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:56PM (#8613522) Journal
        try http://www.emusic.com, which offers 40 songs for $10 a month.

        If you're already an emusic.com customer, and you find emusic.com's "My Collection" page to be a slow, tedious, pain in the ass, and you'd prefer to download to your local harddrive an HTML page showing every album you've downloaded from emusic.com with links back to each album page at emusic.com, get this free program for Windows, Mac, or linux:
        Get Collection [diffenbach.org].

    • Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by smonner ( 468465 ) *
      The problem is that the credit card fees make $0.99 just about the minimum you could charge for a single song and not lose money. Their lunch card idea is pretty good (pay one flat fee and get free songs), and does bring the cost per song down, but you end up having to commit to a certain number of songs. I'm thinking that might be a bit of a tough sell. They might have been better off going with only lunch cards and really pushing the fact that, though you have to pay $10 up front, you are getting songs

    • Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:3, Funny)

      by Rick Zeman ( 15628 )
      Am I the only one not busting a nut at the chance of paying $0.99 to download one song? Or $9.99 to download an album? To me this is hardly an improvement over current pricing. Maybe it's just that the stuff I listen to isn't typically available (live trance sets)

      Get yerself in enough of a trance and you won't notice....;-)

    • Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by orthogonal ( 588627 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:27PM (#8613166) Journal
      Am I the only one not busting a nut at the chance of paying $0.99 to download one song?

      Precisely!

      The problem is the same one that kept me -- a fan of classical music -- from ever making many impulse buys of classical music in record stores.

      It's difficult to tell a good CD from a bad CD without first listening to it.

      With Indie music, the problem is compounded: a bad recording of Bach's The Goldberg Variations is still a recording of Bach's The Goldberg Variations. A bad recording of a bad Indie composition called "Crumpetty Crumpetty Bug-a Lug-a Bomf" is an irredeemable waste of 99 cents.

      Back when eMusic.com allowed unlimited downloads, this wasn't a problem: I could try out an artist I'd never heard of, and if on listening I didn't like his work, I was out nothing more than the time to download that album. Now that eMusic.com limits me to 40 tracks per month, I'm stuck with the same problem as in the record store: how do I apportion my limited resources without getting burnt?

      The safe answer to this quandary is to only purchase music that you know well, or is popular, to some definition of popular. "Popular among listeners of folk music" doesn't result in my getting pablum as bad as "popular among 15 year-old girls", but using either definition of popular means that newer, less knowm and Indie artists won't even be considered for purchase.

      The other answer is to spend a lot of time reading reviews, asking advice of other listeners, and otherwise doing research; the problem is that that's costly, in terms of time, too. How much, exactly, is getting good Indie music supposed to be worth to me?

      So when I see stuff like Audio Lunchbox or MagnaTunes, well, I like the idea but I'm inclined not to part with my money, for fear of buying bad music. Since I already know that anything by Bob Dylan or Pete Seeger or Wilhelm Furtwangler will be good, my inclination is to spend my money on CDs by these well-known artists.

      As a consequence, I'll avoid the bad Indie music but I'll also miss the good Indie music.

      But I'd be far more willing, as the parent poster suggests, to take a risk on Indie music if the risk were smaller: at $2.00 per album I'd be able to get five albums for $10.00, as opposed to one for $9.99. If the odds are that one of those five would be good, then I'd have the same number of good albums for the same price: one good album for ten bucks.

      And having found a good album, I'd be willing to pay somewhat more for another album by that same artist -- though I still probably wouldn't be willing to pay what I'd pay for Bob Dylan.

      • So... (Score:3, Informative)

        by autechre ( 121980 )
        You really can't tell if you'll like the music by listening to the free previews that pretty much everyone gives you? eMusic does 30 seconds, and I think iTunes does too. I'm not sure about the others, but I think Magnatune even lets you listen to the whole song, or listen to a big streaming audio feed of everything they have.

        You could also listen to radio stations which play those sorts of music. Blatant plug: WMBC radio, in my sig, plays a good deal of it. We also have shows that suck, of course, but

    • Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mandalayx ( 674042 )
      Am I the only one not busting a nut at the chance of paying $0.99 to download one song? Or $9.99 to download an album? To me this is hardly an improvement over current pricing. Maybe it's just that the stuff I listen to isn't typically available (live trance sets) but I really can't see paying much more than $0.25 for a single downloadble track. Maybe $0.50 if I really enjoyed the artist.

      But if people will pay $5-15 to eat out when they can have subsistence at home, then what's up here?

    • Re:$0.99 ?? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Dr_LHA ( 30754 )
      Why are you such a cheapskate? 25cents a song, come on!

      Albums at $10 is the right price point, you're seriously suggesting that an album should cost less than a magazine or a big mac meal at McDonalds? Less than half of the cost of one ticket to the movies?

      Think about it in terms of value, an album can give you many hours, even years of enjoyment. If you can get CD for $10 in the shops then fair enough, do that. Most of us tend to find that CDs are more like $13-17 these days.

      If you really care about the

    • .. hardly an improvement over current pricing ..

      True and actually more like hardly any improvement on the terrestrial retail model at all.

      The real revolution in sharing music and retailing content online is coming from some of the smaller and more innovative (although little heard of) companies like Divendo [divendo.net] and Mercora [mercora.com].

  • Yay OGG! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Amiga Lover ( 708890 )
    3 cheers for ogg vorbis support!.

    I didn't think I'd see it happen. THIS is a service I'll support simply due to that feature alone.

    After the clamouring for ogg support that all other stores outright reject, I can see big things for these guys

    • Re:Yay OGG! (Score:4, Funny)

      by gricholson75 ( 563000 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:11PM (#8612972) Homepage
      After the clamouring for ogg support that all other stores outright reject, I can see big things for these guys

      Yup, they will capture that huge Ogg Vorbis community. And it's mountains of disposable cash.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:02PM (#8612856)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • From what I understand, most indie labels have no affiliation with the RIAA.

      Not much they can do about it.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:It had to happen sooner or later (Score:5, Informative)

      by niko9 ( 315647 ) * on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:11PM (#8612976)
      Here use this link to be sure. RIAA Radar [magnetbox.com]

      You can be sure that the music you purcase doesn't support the RIAA efforts.
    • This is about a lot more than just the flow of money. Right now the RIAA speaks for all the major record labels... and that sucks. They present a united front to legislaters when they make demands for DRM and the like. They can fix prices. And they can make claims like "Our industry will die if ... So you need to ...".

      Hopefully the people involved in this program understand the politics of what they're doing as well as the monetary aspect. And if they do, I don't think they'd sell out to the RIAA. Y

    • I'm sure we'll see the usual gamut of heavy-handed tactics (as not so long ago seen with 'net radio) from them. From this brief conversation [magnatune.com] at least some of them seem pretty damned smug. It's a humourous exchange:

      Jan: Depending on how you treat your musicians, you may or may not be evil. How do you treat your musicians?

      Exec: Well, I think we treat them pretty good.

      Jan: Do they make any money?

      Exec: Um... well, you know. It varies from contract to contract.

      (No affiliation with Magnatune, I just

  • Smart move! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by toesate ( 652111 )
    Looks decent.

    With this, my good friend's band could have a revenue stream finally.

  • They need help (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Doesn't_Comment_Code ( 692510 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:04PM (#8612885)
    Of course these are the little guys. They will have a very hard time with the big boys of the music industry trying to squash them. (They view them as a threat... like they view just about everything.)

    The only thing that will decide if they can stay in the fight is if their business model pays off. If it does, small, independant producers to nudge out the bastards that run the show right now. Which brings me to my next point...

    Buy music from these guys! Find something you like and buy it. If you're not sure what to buy, buy from several bands and try them all. If you don't like any of it... buy a lot anyway! Help them give the boot to the established (bully) companies out there.

    • Re:They need help (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Shihar ( 153932 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:12PM (#8612982)
      "If you're not sure what to buy, buy from several bands and try them all. If you don't like any of it... buy a lot anyway! Help them give the boot to the established (bully) companies out there."

      And here lies the problem. Some people enjoy gambling, some people don't. It never sat well with me that I could walk into a record store and gamble my money away on some unknown CD I have not heard. I dislike the idea even more now that I have seen the alternative in the former E-Music and peer to peer.

      Simply put, I will spend X number of dollars each month. It doesn't matter how much music is out there, I have a set amount of money I am willing to spend. I don't want to gamble one wasting my money on things I don't like. I don't even want to bother researching the music to improve my odds. I simply want to listen on my own time, and if I find something I like, keep it instead of deleting it.

      Until someone accomidates me I am simply going to follow the path of least resistance. E-music used to be that path. I happily shelled out my money and downloaded and listened when I had the chance. Since E-music when to their foolish new pricing plan I have simply gone back to peer to peer applications. The advertised service means nothing to me. I simply want to download music at a fixed price and forget about it. I don't ever want to sit there and make a judgement call as to if I am wasting my money by buying one song or another.

      Hurray for independent labels and no DRM, but stuff like this is for someone else. I'll stick to stealing.

      • Re:They need help (Score:3, Informative)

        by MJOverkill ( 648024 )
        Well, quickly checking over the Audio Lunchbox site, I see that they provide samples from each track that you can listen to before buying them. You can listen to samples from each artist to find those that you like. No more gambling.
      • The "Listen" sample clips on this service seem pretty darn generous- the one I checked was 45 seconds long, almost the entire song, and there were clips for every song on the album. So, it's actually *really* easy to know if you'll like something on this service- just check out all of the samples before you buy! Of course, if you'd rather steal, and be a thief, and justify the RIAA and their tactics, that's your call.
      • You may be interested in Magnatune [magnatune.com].

        Try before you buy. Low prices. Seems worthwhile to me.
    • Ya, there is something to be said for their selection. Its not bad, its just a nice compliment to iTMS.

      I can finally legally get some of my fav. underground rap. They do have anticon, but no rhymesayers :(

  • Electronic Music Delivery (Score:4, Insightful)

    by myownkidney ( 761203 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:06PM (#8612902) Homepage
    Music Labels are there to CREATE musicians, not to find true talent. Hopefully, electronic music delivery, getting rid of the middlemen, should enable good artists to come out.

    In case you've forgotten, the record Labels are evil, because:

    1. They rip you off
    2. They rip the musicians off
    3. They want to block new technology (eg. P2P)
    • Music Labels are there to CREATE musicians, not to find true talent.

      Errr, they're there to make money for the company and their stockholders....Everything else is ancillary.

    • Re:Electronic Music Delivery (Score:5, Insightful)

      by uqbar ( 102695 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @03:31PM (#8613885)
      I own a small label. We don't create musicians - we find musicians that are good and allow them to focus on what they do best - make music. Many of them don't know or want to focus their time on getting loans, finding engineers, booking studio time, finding graphic artists, booking tours, manufacturing cds, marketing their release, etc., etc. While kudos go out to the "Our Band Could Be Your Life" exceptions that actually manage to pull off a complete DIY business, there is still a need for what we do.

      Most of the bands on my label would never see a studio if it weren't for the fact that we took and interest in recording their music and selling it. Our profit margins don't exist - few of our records break even, most lose and I unless I get lucky or sell out I will continue to work long hours at my day job.

      All profits at your typical indie label are split 50/50 with the artist. This is hardly a rip off.

      As far a new technology goes - well consumers are at least half the problem. Why would you want to lose even more money? That said I always release free songs even though this often irks the bands. I'd rather people hear the recordings I've worked so hard to bring into the world.

      Please don't apply your mostly true observations about the majors to the thousands of indy record labels. We need your support to survive and thrive and that means being honest and even taking a few (gasp) risks...

  • Although I support the idea (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Sheetrock ( 152993 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:09PM (#8612941) Homepage Journal
    Can't they do something like this with FLAC encoded music?

    The quality of Ogg and MP3 is pretty good (certainly better than radio) but I want to be able to build an online music collection that is comparable in quality to my offline one; i.e., one that does not suffer from the high-end noise that the lossy formats have.

    Otherwise, I might as well go back to vinyl.

    • I'm sure they could use FLAC.

      The problem is that these things are to be downloaded, a full CD in FLAC runs in the ~300M (please correct me if I'm wrong) range, you are going to burn a lot of money on bandwidth like that.

    • Yes, see Magnatune (Score:3, Informative)

      by jocknerd ( 29758 )
      Magnatune [magnatune.com] offers a multitude of formats including Ogg, MP3, WAV, and FLAC.
    • Oh, come on. Vog Orbis Q6 is, for all practical purposes, audibly indistinguishable from FLAC. I'd be willing to bet significant amounts of money that you cannot reliably detect the different on any actual musical recording.

    • Magnatune include FLAC (Score:4, Informative)

      by Alan Cox ( 27532 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @04:51PM (#8615202) Homepage
      Magnatune have a whole collection of non-mainstream music, with a particular emphasis on classical stuff (which suprised me a little initially). They offer FLAC encoded audio providing you actually pay up (the mp3/ogg are try before you buy too).

      Perhaps audiolunchbox can be persuaded to go the same way. Its certainly nice being able to burn full quality CDs of the music I bought online.

      http://www.magnatune.com

  • Good deal (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 192939495969798999 ( 58312 ) <info AT devinmoore DOT com> on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:09PM (#8612944) Homepage Journal
    Let me help those of you who may not know... it costs a lot of money to write and get a good recording of a song. If I were to only charge 25 cents for a recording that cost me $500 of my time, it would take me 2000 copies, versus perhaps 500 copies, to get at least to a gross return on my investment. What makes this website cool is that the artist doesn't have to sell as many tracks as they otherwise would, because the artist is getting a bigger payout than pretty much anyone offers. Considering that this is the case, is it worth your 99 cents to get the track? Yes, because that 99 cents goes a lot farther towards helping that artist than it would for say, Britney Spears, who probably gets a tiny fraction of that sale and could really care less. Oh yeah -- she doesn't write her music anyways, so it's kinda moot to discuss her, but you get the point.

    • Re:Good deal (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sqlrob ( 173498 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:15PM (#8613027)
      Why don't people think in volume?

      If you cut the margin in half and triple your sales because of it, where are you with money in hand?

      Plus, cutting the prices would allow you to market with "cheaper than iTunes/Napster"

      • Re:Good deal (Score:3, Insightful)

        by 2nd Post! ( 213333 )
        Because maybe the volume isn't there.

        You can rephrase your statements to reflect that possibility?

        When you cut the margin in half and if you triple your sales because of it, where are you with money in hand?

        That leaves an unspoken question, "What if you cut the margin in half and you *don't* triple your sales because of it, where are you with money in hand?

    • Re:Good deal (Score:2, Insightful)

      by pqdave ( 470411 )
      At 99 cents each, I'm only going to buy songs I really, really like. I'm at least 5 times more likely to buy a song if it only costs me 25 cents. You do the math.

      • Re:Good deal (Score:3, Interesting)

        by nosilA ( 8112 )
        Lunchbox takes 35 cents from each sale. About two years ago I worked out a business model for this and found out that I would need 25 cents per song to cover my costs (development, bandwidth, maintenance, salaries, advertising, acquiring talent, etc). This was of course based on a more modest estimate of how many sales I would get through (and how many artists I would host) but 25 cents is going to be hard for anyone to do.

        If the incremental cost is less than I calculated, say 10 cents/song - you'd need

  • Opening my Audio Lunchbox (Score:4, Funny)

    by The I Shing ( 700142 ) * on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:12PM (#8612985) Journal
    I'm opening my audio lunchbox right now...
    Awww... ham and cheese
    again?

  • Let me be the first to proclaim (Score:3, Funny)

    by Tibor the Hun ( 143056 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:13PM (#8613002)
    Let me be the first to say that this company is dead!

  • Magnatune (Score:4, Informative)

    by cain ( 14472 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:13PM (#8613007) Journal
    Here is another service along the same lines and even less evil: Magnatune [magnatune.com], "we are not evil." Pay as much as you want (within reason, natch'). There is not a huge selection yet, but maybe if more peeps start buying from them....

    • Re:Magnatune (Score:5, Informative)

      by Mprx ( 82435 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:19PM (#8613066)
      Magnatune is great. Unlike most online music stores, they sell lossless CD quality audio (in FLAC [sourceforge.net] format, or WAV if you want to waste everyone's bandwidth). The selection is steadily growing, and there is some excellent music there. All their music can be previewed in 128kbps MP3, and it's only $5 (or more if you are feeling generous) an album if you want higher quality.

    • Re:Magnatune (Score:3, Informative)

      by jejones ( 115979 )
      Pay as much as you want (within reason, natch').

      Not only that, but the artists get half of what you pay, not some miniscule percentage cut down by phony deductions such as for "lacquer breakage."

      There is not a huge selection yet...

      Agreed, but--in the field that I have a major interest in and a little knowledge of (early music), I can say that what they do have is damned good stuff.
    • Nice! Flac is good! Magnatune is good!

      Just bought my first album. Recommend it for those who like techno with an edge. "Processor: Insomnia".

      Audio Lunchbox looks good too, but their streaming is a bit broken (perhaps slashdotted) and I couldn't find much music I liked.

      Thanks for the heads up.

  • HearsayMusic.ca (indie) shameless self promotion (Score:4, Informative)

    by warren69 ( 187813 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:15PM (#8613023) Homepage
    Well, we only have 12 indie artists so far. Canadian indie stuff... anyway www.hearsaymusic.ca! mp3s 1 dollar Canadian (192kps)... 30 second samples (128kps). And in contrast to what indiepool (Canadian puretracks' indie thing) does, we do not charge anything to get onto the site, and encoding. We take a share of the sales.

    Cheers,
    Daniel

  • Pricing problems with all services (Score:3, Insightful)

    by azpcox ( 88971 ) <azpcox@ya[ ].com ['hoo' in gap]> on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:15PM (#8613025)
    The only ones who really win are the VISA and MASTERCARDs who get a cut of EVERY sale anytime one of them is used. Why else does Apple bunch up all of your purchases made throughout the day to a single transaction at night???

    If they could implement a credit style system, pre-pay if you will, they will be able to avoid the 30 cent (or more) per transaction overhead and lower prices. Maybe if when you set up an account, you buy a $20 credit or so, similar to how iTunes does it with their gift certificates (which only makes Apple MORE money since they don't have to pay the transaction fees on gift certificate purchases -- and they don't pass the "savings" on to you....)

    More options are always a good thing, especially with DRM-free formats.
    • They DO have a pre-pay system, implemented through their "Lunch Card" service [audiolunchbox.com]:

      Lunch cards are a way to prepay for the music you listen to. You put money on the card and then use it instead of a credit card when it's time to check out. Lunch cards have two huge benefits:

      1. You don't have to search for your credit card when you check out. When you put money on your lunch card, you can speed through the check out.

      2. For a limited time we are going to throw in some free tracks to sweeten the deal. By usi

  • Works great. Very happy. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DdJ ( 10790 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:15PM (#8613034) Homepage Journal
    I've already purchased two albums from them, pict.soul [audiolunchbox.com] and Error [audiolunchbox.com]. What's interesting is that both are available from the iTunes Music Store as well as from Audio Lunchbox, at exactly the same price (here [apple.com] and here [apple.com]). I buy plenty of music from the iTunes Music Store, but I am willing to go a little bit out of my way to avoid the DRM if I can get the same price without it.

    They take PayPal too, so I didn't have to enter credit card info into... anything at all.

  • Magnatune.com is better (Score:5, Informative)

    by kwelndar ( 187318 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:17PM (#8613049) Journal
    Open music is what Magnatune.com [magnatune.com] sells. From the site: "All songs are available in MP3, CD-quality WAV, OGG, FLAC and MP3-VBR: download whichever formats you like." The best part is you can download and audition the music, then decide what you want to pay, if anything. "Magnatune lets you choose how much you want to pay for your downloaded album. The more you choose to pay, the more the artist makes, because at Magnatune, half goes directly to the artist, while the other half supports Magnatune." They are also members of the Creative Commons.

    Disclaimer: I am not affiliated in any way with Magnatune.com. This is just a really cool idea whose time has come.

  • Archive.org (Score:4, Informative)

    by Petronius ( 515525 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:20PM (#8613078)
    has a great selection of FREE music (live and studio). Look under Archive.org -> Audio -> Net Labels.

  • Crap! (Score:4, Funny)

    by r00zky ( 622648 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:21PM (#8613087)
    All MP3s are encoded at 192 kbps variable bit rate (VBR). Ogg Vorbis files are encoded at a variable bit rate (VBR) "quality 6"

    4. Can my cousin in Italy buy songs from you?
    Yes. Anyone in the world can download tracks from us.

    Damn I'm running out of excuses for not paying for music :'(

  • Streaming broken? (Score:4, Informative)

    by gosand ( 234100 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:25PM (#8613145)
    I couldn't preview any songs by clicking on the "Listen" buttons for an artist. Winamp was giving me a "synch error with mpeg".

    If you have the same problem, save the m3u file, copy-n-paste the contents into your browser. It would then launch winamp and I could preview the songs. I don't know if it was Winamp's problem or not, but what a PITA. Instead of streaming it, why not just link to the partial mp3 itself? Sheesh.

    Now on the service, I wish it were a little cheaper, but I might check them out. I have been mass downloading songs from MP3.com, burning them to a CD, and listening to them in my car. (MP3 capable car CD player - best thing EVER) It is kind of cool to hear indie artists, but you do get a lot of garbage in there too, just guys in their basement. But it is still interesting.

  • Royalties upon Purchase (Score:3, Interesting)

    by stecoop ( 759508 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:26PM (#8613147) Journal
    It wouldn't be so bad if you owed royalties when you bought the music. I mean when you buy a song then its your to put on any media. Let's say right now CDs are popular. Tomorrow it's going to be, say, Memory Sticks.

    Now if the vendors could figure out how to make money and when you buy the music you can listen to it however you like and not a simple one time download but its your to move to various media, always own, sell, etc.

    I went though many tapes because the tapes failed over time. It seems I should own the rights to listen to the music upon purchase.

  • A dollar a pop to listen to a bunch of nobodies (Score:3, Interesting)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:27PM (#8613171) Journal
    Seriously, get over it.

    Free downloads make so much more sense for a band trying to reach a wider audience.

    Most people will only pay for music that's already "made it". They like that song thats always on the radio, "who are those guys? Im gonna get that CD."

  • more legal alternatives (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    www.furthernet.org

    live recordings from artists who allow taping at their concerts, all free, all legal, & theres *some* big names in there too

    www.magnatune.com

    indie record label. their motto is "we're not evil" you can download music, or pay for it (you determine the price to a degree) and if i recall properly i first heard about it on slashdot

  • CDbaby.com (Score:3, Informative)

    by funny-jack ( 741994 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:28PM (#8613185) Homepage
    I think now would be an appropriate time to mention that if you're into independent artists, and you like physical media, check out CDbaby.com [cdbaby.com]. Tons of great independent artists, good prices, and a good portion of the money actually goes to the artist.

    Plus, their shipping notice email is cool. :^)

  • Quality donflict, and other options (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fatwreckfan ( 322865 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:31PM (#8613233)
    From http://audiolunchbox.com...

    192 kbps VBR MP3 Audio Files

    I'm confused...which is it? 192Kbps or VBR? And if it's VBR, what quality?

    I'm somewhat disapointed that out-of-print stuff isn't available through here though. They distribute albums on Epitaph Records, but none of the albums no longer produced are available. I think this would be a great way to let people get ahold of those old albums they can't buy any more, since it involves 0 cost for the label to provide the mp3s.

    Emusic [emusic.com] on the other hand offers at least some of the out of print albums in DRM-free mp3 form. Unfortunately, I tried their service once and found the quality of mp3s sorely lacking...one album I downloaded crackled audibly through the whole thing.

  • Artists get 65% of revenue. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Aaron England ( 681534 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:34PM (#8613274)
    Sounds like Audio Lunchbox is a lot more fair [audiolunchbox.com] to the artists than iTunes and other online music stores are.

  • Nice. (Score:3, Informative)

    by U.I.D 754625 ( 754625 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:36PM (#8613296) Homepage Journal
    This music store comes through where Apple failed for me. I download iTunes, and I wanted to like it, I wanted to possibly save for an iPod, but the store interface was crap. I don't feel I'm alone on this, but here's why: There weren't enough categories. There were no ties between like bands.

    Audio lunchbox divides the music up so much better. It has hardcore, four metal subcategories, a bunch of rock categories and even a seperate punk category (these are just my tastes). iTunes, from the searching I did, would label all this "alternative/rock". By doing this, it was hard to find bands that don't have radio exposure and thus hard for me to buy music unless I wanted the radio top 40 garbage.

    • Re:Nice. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by vonFinkelstien ( 687265 )
      I almost never listen to rock. I listen to Classical, Jazz, Blue and Folk

      iTunes's organization of Classical music is wonderful. It could be better, but there are plenty of subgenres for me to easily find what I'm looking for.

      It wasn't always like that. I added a suggestion on how to organize their Classical selections and was surprised to see that they followed up on it (probably due to many others with the same suggestion).

      If you want more categories, then click on that that little button that allows y

  • Mperia [mperia.com] gives a higher percentage back to the artist and uses Bitpass, which is already the most popular micropayment system out there. By supporting Mperia and Bitpass, you're helping not just musicians but webcomics artists, photographers, and others create a market for their works, too. Something worth thinking about.

  • Reviewed on Breakdown (Score:3, Informative)

    by image ( 13487 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @02:42PM (#8613370) Homepage
    I reviewed this music service (among many others) at Breakdown Industries and it stacked up very favorably. Note that the reviews are biased toward independent artists (i.e., RIAA-free).

    Read the review here. [breakdownindustries.com].
  • I dont seem to get this, not sure what price CD's are in the States but Im guessing they probably average out at about 10-15 dollars, per album.

    So why pay 99cents per track , when if you want the whole album 12-15 tracks, you could end up paying more for a lossy format audio track that you might accidentally delete(unless you habitually burn CD's)

    Me ? I'd rather buy an Actual CD , in a box with nice printed disc and inlays for about the same price. Great thing about having the actual CD is that I can rip
    • I dont seem to get this, not sure what price CD's are in the States but Im guessing they probably average out at about 10-15 dollars, per album.

      At most record stores it tends to be more like $15-$20 when they aren't on sale.

      So why pay 99cents per track , when if you want the whole album 12-15 tracks, you could end up paying more for a lossy format audio track that you might accidentally delete(unless you habitually burn CD's)

      The whole albums are always $9.99, so an album with more than 10 tracks is che

  • I am actually in the possession of that rare beast, an non-Apple AAC player.

    When transcoding to 128kbps AAC, which source material suffers less degredation, 192kbps MP3 or Q6 Vorbis? This music site has decently high quality originals for a change, but not in formats suited to my player.

  • Also check out Magnatune (Score:3, Informative)

    by DaveJay ( 133437 ) on Friday March 19, 2004 @03:01PM (#8613566)
    Magnatune [magnatune.com] has been mentioned before, and it offers entire albums from $4-$18 (it's up to you how much you want to pay), free access to streams of the music you want to preview, and you end up purchasing two downloadable .zip files: one with pre-compressed .mp3s, and one with WAV files(!) -- and no DRM whatsoever.

    I've bought two albums to date (mrEpic and Brad Sucks) and recommend them both highly. Enjoy!


  • Consider Audio Lunchbox your "gateway drug" to a cooler music scene. Mixed in with all the indie music are some more mainstream artists like Sponge and Pennywise. Soon, you'll be clicking away at all the "extra" bands they have - the real meat of the service.

    I allowed Audio Lunchbox a few weeks worth of free banners at my site a little while back(they used to have an orange theme!), because I knew these guys were fighting the good fight.

    What is surprising to me is the amount of new bands that they've g

Slashdot Top Deals

news: gotcha

Close