The New MP3.com: 3rd Time a Charm? 213
macdaddypunk writes "Two weeks ago, CNET unveiled Download.com Music (mistaken by some for the new MP3.com). A week ago, they told the press that the real MP3.com was open for business, yet the site itself still said "coming soon." Today, MP3.com is finally live, and off to a sputtering start. It's a combination of tech articles and a meta-search for major-label downloads. For example, with a single search you can find that 'Abbey Road' by the Beatles is not available for legal download at iTunes, Napster, or anywhere else. The tech content includes such gems as 'how to copy your old vinyl records onto CDs.' The real news is what it does NOT include: no free downloads, and no indie artist community. (As reported earlier, the former MP3.com archive of 1.7 million songs was instead resurrected by another independent music community). The new MP3.com's search results don't even include the 3,500 indie artists from Download.com Music."
All we need is Netcraft's confirmation. (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, with a single search you can find that 'Abbey Road' by the Beatles is not available for legal download at iTunes, Napster, or anywhere else. [...] The real news is what it does NOT include: no free downloads, and no indie artist community.
This submission sounds less like a news item and more like a proactive obituary. It's "mp3.com" in name only.
Re:All we need is Netcraft's confirmation. (Score:2, Insightful)
I doubt you'll ever find a music download site that covers all the artists and all the songs you want.
I certainly wouldn't expect a "one stop shopping" site for my music. However the New & Improved MP3.com offers no free downloads. Do they offer a refund on music you buy that sucks? Nope. Do they offer a "test drive" (say, a time-limited protected music format)? Nope.
When I bought my car the dealership tossed me the keys for a test drive. Not being able to test drive a damn 2 dollar song is beyond r
Re:All we need is Netcraft's confirmation. (Score:2, Insightful)
Well yes, except that you did not have the means to drive around the corner and get the car copied.
Re:All we need is Netcraft's confirmation. (Score:2)
OTOH, these guys are competeing with 0.00$ per song. They want us to be customers instead of thieves, they'd better look up "customer friendly".
Re:All we need is Netcraft's confirmation. (Score:2, Interesting)
Then you can buy the rest (well the whole song) if you like it.
Test a portion of the song? (Score:2)
A free portion of the song...you had better watch out, that's such a good idea, it wouldn't surprise me if all the other [itunes.com] download [napster.com] sites [buymusic.com] outright stole it from you!
then you don't need it... (Score:3, Insightful)
[beyond reason]? Not really.
The car in question cost quite a few thousands of dollars. It makes sense to accomodate test drives, and show rooms, etc.
Do you really insist on getting a free test of anything before you spend 2 dollars on it?
For a $20,000 ITEM, hell yes.
But for a $2 item? Personally, I don't waste 5 seconds deliberating over such trivia. If I need to 'tes
Ummmm (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ummmm (Score:2)
Re:Ummmm (Score:3, Insightful)
Tons of articles and comments pass through
Re:Ummmm (Score:2)
Re:Ummmm (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry to say, but while your vinyl record may be durable, if your record player broke down you would be screwed. Vinyl record players are really expensive and difficult to find anymore.
My father has a huge collection of vinyl records that he accumulated in his youth. They sat in storage for years until around 1996 when I bought him a brand new record player. I had a hell of a time finding one and I think it cost me $400.
It would probably be much harder now to find such a setup for that price.
Re:Ummmm (Score:2)
Isnt the DJ Scene pretty much keeping records alive?
One Google Search Later... [needledoctor.com]
Re:Ummmm (Score:2)
Re:Ummmm (Score:2)
http://www.djmedieval.com
Re:Ummmm (Score:2)
Re:Ummmm (Score:5, Informative)
You will require a sound card with a line input, and a preamplifier with the appropriate equalisation characteristic {for a magnetic pick-up cartridge} or a very high input impedance {for a ceramic cartridge}. Don't even think about using the mic input, even though in this case it doesn't matter about being mono: the equalisation is wrong for magnetic, and the impedance is too low for ceramic. To go from 45 to 78rpm use sox song_at_45.wav song_at_78.wav speed 1.733. Alternatively, if you have a very good sound card which lets you set the sample rate precisely, recording at 25442Hz will give the correct speed when played back at 44100Hz. The cut-off frequency will only be about 12.5kHz this way, but in practice this isn't such a problem as the old recording equipment had less bandwidth anyway.
Note you will almost certainly have to perform some additional low-pass filtering. Read the sox manpage and experiment. A spectrum analyser {hardware or software} will enable you to determine the bandwidth of the signal; anything outside there should be discarded.
Re:Ummmm (Score:2)
Re:Ummmm (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Ummmm (Score:2)
Best Buy has turntables starting at $99, Circuit City the same, etc.
Flea markets and thrift stores should have turntables as well. Just check around.
And $99 for a component isn't too expensive, even with $29 DVD players from Wal-Mart (which is worthless).
Re:Ummmm (Score:2)
If that doesn't do it for you, you can always get a new one for way under $100...take this one [jr.com] as an example.
That's probably equivalent to a standard low end component CD player. And most new vinyl (yes, they still release new records - mostly indie and club stuff, but some major label as well) is less expensive than the equivalent CD. I don't even need to bother mentioning
Re:Ummmm (Score:2)
How do you do it (Score:2)
Keep up that treatment of your records, and they wont last the next story.
Re:Ummmm (Score:3, Insightful)
since a digitized sound loses all of the sonic information between its sampling points
Clearly written by someone who doesn't understand how PCM works.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:indie artists (Score:3, Informative)
ZeroPhase? (Score:2, Informative)
Use RIAA Radar (Score:3, Informative)
How to tell if you are fattening the RIAA execs (Score:2, Informative)
Re:indie artists (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:indie artists (Score:3, Informative)
Too many cooks in the kitchen (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Too many cooks in the kitchen (Score:4, Informative)
I thought Apple Itunes, which looks like the field leader, was not making any profit at all, and was just using it as a tool to boost thier ipod sales.
I feel I have to address this since it seems to keep coming up. Apple might not be making any direct profit from download sales, and maybe neither is anyone else, but someone is, and that "someone" are labels. Given the notion that the business-end of the labels appear to be the least tech-savvy people on the planet, consider iTunes and the rest as the outsourced end of the labels' distribution methods. What I'm getting at is that the services probably aren't going to ever make the money they should in volume, but probably just enough to keep them around as another marketing tool for the labels'. It's like web-banners. You may never click on one, but if you see them enough, you're bound to become familiar with the service/product/etc. that the banner advertises.
Anyhow, wasn't one of the aims of the "downloaded music craze" to improve the quality of the product from the consumer point of view? Consider this: There's about seven or eight legal download services that I consider to be the "primary" services. Together, they make up a fairly large music catalog, and not of just pop music. I can buy a whole album's worth of music for considerably less than what I'd pay at a retail outlet, like a Sam Goody (nearly half the cost if you consider tax on a $17.99 album.) In nearly all the cases, I can burn a CD of the music, which means I can pretty much do anything with it after that. And for those of you that are running Linux, let me ask you this: would it kill you to go out and get a generic windows box, and set it up so that it specifically handles music only? I mean if you are that adamant about not using windows, then don't, but for christ's sake don't act like you have no other option. In most cases, if you don't like anything that iTunes or the like carries, then you won't be needing windows anyhow. Case in point: Audio Lunchbox. [audiolunchbox.com] 192 Kbps
You have options, and it has gotten better. You still can't walk into a store and preview the music before you buy it, but you can with most of the legal download services. It's a pain in the ass nowadays to use P2P apps for downloads because it takes too damn long, even on my cable modem, mostly because I have to find it first, then I have to try and find a decent sound quality, and then there's the viruses, and what have you...99 cents, you have what you're looking for, right from the get go, it downloads fast, it sounds GOOD ENOUGH (I'm not an audiophile, nor do I care to be one, that's too much work for too little enjoyment)...it's basically a whole lot less of a pain in the ass.
I'm just trying to be optimistic about the whole "downloaded music craze" and hope that it only gets better as time progresses, because everything can stand to improve. If you ask me, we are at a much better place than we were 3 or 4 years ago. Granted we could have all gone without the bullshit lawsuits and the DRM/DMCA crap, but as history will tell you, if you can't learn from your mistakes, then you won't be around long enough to keep making them.
Re:Too many cooks in the kitchen (Score:2)
You have options, and it has gotten better. You still can't walk into a store and preview the music before you buy it, but you can with most of the legal download services.
Still can't? You used to be able to, at better stores. All that I know of have stopped allowing this, however.
Re:Too many cooks in the kitchen (Score:2)
Screw pay-to-download mp3s (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Screw pay-to-download mp3s (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Screw pay-to-download mp3s (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Screw pay-to-download mp3s (Score:2)
If you insist on paying for what you can get for free...
Sorry, you lost me on the "screw paying for what you can rip off" line.
Re:Screw pay-to-download mp3s (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Screw pay-to-download mp3s (Score:2)
i agree with your point
however
the artists should handle that upfront
i dont think those people should be subject to song royalties(aside from musicians)
No way (Score:2)
Re:Screw pay-to-download mp3s (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Screw pay-to-download mp3s (Score:2)
Your right, I should have said "steaming pile".
Re:Screw pay-to-download mp3s (Score:2)
Re:Screw pay-to-download mp3s (Score:3, Insightful)
Think about it: who did
Re:Screw pay-to-download mp3s (Score:2)
I might agree with you, if the cost of the staff/studio/engineer etc., wasn't taken back out of the musicians 50 cents. The cost of making the masters, studio time etc. is all taken from the musicians royalties not the record companies.
If the record doesn't sell, they can recoup that cost from other records the artists make.
"Think about it: who did the hard work? "
The p
The artist is paying all of these people (Score:4, Informative)
As a musician and artist (Score:2)
Re:As a musician and artist (Score:2)
Wow.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wow.... (Score:2)
Re:Wow.... (Score:2, Interesting)
You mean... (Score:4, Funny)
(if you don't get it, visit other C|NET sites.)
Excellent! (Score:5, Funny)
Just what I always wanted, a search engine that would tell me where I couldn't find what I was looking for...
Re:Excellent! (Score:3, Interesting)
I actually wouldn't mind a search engine that gave definitive negative results. I could stop looking and move onto something else.
Supporting Independent Music (Score:5, Insightful)
that way, when you buy a song from Magnatune, Bleep, or Audiolunchbox, you WON'T be:
1.) sending your cash to the RIAA
2.) attributing to the success of a service that fronts the RIAA, supporting the operation of tyrannous record labels with your cash
3.) supporting propietary DRM
4.) locking yourself into using iTunes or an iPod as your portable player
by opting for other services that aren't iTunes/Walmart/Sony/Rhapsody/etc.., you WILL be:
1.) sending more cash to the musicians you like
2.) attributing to the success of a service that better represents and compensates the musicians you like, without restricting how you listen to your music
3.) free to listen to your music however you want, whether it be with winamp or foobar, linux or whatever OS you use, ipod or rio karma
Re:Supporting Independent Music (Score:2, Interesting)
that's what bothers me about their strategy. they assume that there are two options: A)i buy their music or B)I download their music for free because i just can't resist their fabulous marketing techniques.
the other option, C) I am not interested in RIAA music or am
iTunes has tons of independent labels (Score:2)
CDBaby (was:Supporting Independent Music) (Score:2)
CDBaby [cdbaby.com], a good service, with good music, run by good people.
A little while ago, I happened to whip up a best of CDBaby [turnstyle.org] site (selections based on their editor picks, and here presented via my PHP/ASP app Andromeda [turnstyle.com]).
Chevy Nova, anyone? (Score:2)
Oh boy, they have issues (Score:2, Funny)
Notice the steps...
Step Five:
Step Seven:
Step Eight:
Step Seven:
Step Eight:
Note: Repeat steps three to eight for the other side of the LP.
Step Nine:
Wow, that's great!
Ingredients... (Score:2)
Disbanded groups (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, the
"News"? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is only "news" if you haven't paid any attention at all to who owns MP3.com, and the "general trend" in on-line music sites to charge for downloads. Really, to say this is "no surprise" is even an overstatement. Just another music-for-sale download site. Move along...
You get what you pay for (Score:2, Insightful)
improper page loading.. (Score:2, Insightful)
You'd think they would at least test their new site in more than one browser before such a massive launch.. sigh
CSS Based Layout (Score:5, Interesting)
The point? Interesting to see that MP3.com are forward thinking - in their web side anyway.
Re:CSS Based Layout (Score:2)
Re:CSS Based Layout (Score:2)
Re:CSS Based Layout (Score:2)
You didn't actually go to the new MP3.com site yet, did you?
There's no music there.
Re:CSS Based Layout (Score:2)
Re:CSS Based Layout (Score:2)
Needs more Boards (Score:2)
C|Net should really separate MP3 hardware topics from the generic "Tech Guide Discussion" board they've got now.
1.7 million songs? What does that tell us? (Score:5, Interesting)
Some people blame diminishing CD sales on unauthorized CD copying; others blame it on technological obsolescence (people buy DVD's instead of CD's now); still others say it's because poor artistic decisions by record labels result in releasing uninteresting music that people don't want to buy. I haven't yet seen a connection made with authorized, freely downloadable music, that people can listen to instead of buying proprietary CD's, just like they can run GNU/Linux instead of buying Windows, Apache instead of IIS, etc. Sure, a lot of mp3.com downloads are crap, but lots of commercial CD's are crap too.
Another really good site, by the way, is Magnatunes [magnatunes.com]. They publish entire CD's under a Creative Commons license and you can download the complete CD's in mp3 format and pass around copies noncommercially. You can also pay to download in FLAC or Ogg Vorbis format, or buy commercial licenses (e.g. if you want to use one of the CD's as a movie soundtrack) through a simple web interface. There is some really excellent music there too.
So they're a search engine now.... (Score:2)
MusicVine (Score:4, Interesting)
One good thing that it DOES have is the musicvine. Shows the relationship between artists in a (not horrible, not great) flash interface.
This sure beats using Amazon to help me find the relationships between artists, and scouting out new sounds for my "distinct" tastes.
~D
mp3.com.com.com.com (Score:2)
Not to be mistaken for CNet's mp3.com.com.
Which does, of course, exist [com.com], but is not redirected to Download.com Music [download.com].
Of course (Score:2)
So, MP3.com is trying to be the place to go to search for music, none of which is actually in MP3 format. It all makes sense now.
Oh Joy (Score:2, Insightful)
What's the point? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Zombie Effect yet again... (Score:2, Insightful)
Like Napster before it, it seems MP3.com has fallen victim to the RIAA's insatiable greed. What before was a bastion to new, emerging, and often innovative bands is now pay to listen, and no indie artists.
I like to call this the Zombie Effect - websites and P2P programs are killed by a h
Fair clever and just, or just fairly clever? (Score:2)
Browsers (Score:2)
Rus
You can buy Abbey Road online (Score:2)
You can buy Abbey Road online here. [allofmp3.com].
Re:You can buy Abbey Road online (Score:2)
allofmp3.com simply rocks.
Re: allofmp3.com (Score:2)
Abbey Road (Score:3, Informative)
For example, with a single search you can find that 'Abbey Road' by the Beatles is not available for legal download at iTunes, Napster, or anywhere else.
You can find it for download here [allofmp3.com], in your choice of format and bit rate (up to 384kbps), DRM-free, for $0.01 per MB (and, BTW, when they say MB, they mean 2^20 bytes).
As I understand it, it is a legal download [allofmp3.com], though it probably makes the record labels angry.
(How is it legal? IANAL, but my understanding is that it works like this: Under Russian law, there is apparently no difference between broadcasting over radio and "broadcasting" over the Internet. allofmp3.com pays royalties just as though they were a radio station and thereby obtains the right to "broadcast" over the net. I'm sure the RIAA is trying to figure out how to close this loophole in Russian law, but they haven't been able to do it yet. Oh, and AFAIK there is no law against importing music files from Russia, although it may be the case that you're supposed to pay some sort of import duties.)
Third time's a charm? (Score:2)
Mp3.com once had a good thing going with the many indie bands I discovered there. Over time, it went more corp-signed-artists, and began to mostly resemble the crap I heard and the radio and was trying to avoid. Now, free downloads and indie are both gone... what makes it different from any other mp3bandwagon.com outfit? Seems to me all they have is a name, and many other names have already eaten away at that mindshare whilst they'be been away.
Now, I am free. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why...? Allofmp3.com (Score:3, Interesting)
Probably not legal in the US, but the russian government fully backs it, and with it accepting paypal to charge an account, I'm a happy customer.
Still Trying to Figure Out... (Score:3, Interesting)
Universal made $31 million selling the independent library, that they CHARGED musicians to post.
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum...
Only one search to find out you can't do it? (Score:3, Funny)
Goldwave???? (Score:2)
Last time I looked, Goldwave was a Windoze program. Has that changed, is there version of Goldwave for Linux now? If not, obvious question, what software WOULD one use to do this job in Linux?
This is not academic, when packing to move from NY to FL, in spite of all I discarded, I kept several boxes of LP's, a couple of old turntables (may need some work or a new cartridge), and a c
Re:Goldwave???? (Score:2)
Re:Goldwave???? (Score:2)
(I'm singing you a ballad of a great man of the cloth,
his name was Harry Lewis and he worked for Irving Roth,
he died while cutting velvet on a hot July the fourth,
and his cloth goes shining on!)
or "Sir Greenbaum"
(In Sherwood Forest there dwelt a knight,
who was known as the righteous Sir Greenbaum,
and many dragons had felt the might,
of the smite of the righteous Sir Greenbaum!)
Got it on vinyl, just gotta
How to turn vinyl LPs into CDs: Step 0.5 (Score:2)
Re:An Independent Music Supporters reaction. (Score:2)
A lot of cruft to wade through to find some good stuff (it exists), but I guess it's no worse that the original mp3.com ever was.