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OD2 Launches Penny-Per-Song Streaming Jukebox 163

Posted by timothy from the not-so-good-in-the-car dept.
securitas writes "BBC Technology's Darren Waters reports that UK digital music service OD2 launched its 350,000-song SonicSelector streaming 'digital jukebox' for a penny per song a day ahead of the iTunes Europe debut. The service (co-founded by Peter Gabriel) is available only in 'UK, France, Germany and Italy and will only work with users of Windows Media Player' 9. NewsFactor and The Register have descriptions of the pay-per-use / a la carte service. More at the Financial Times and Reuters via ZDNet UK. You can also read the previous OD2 Slashdot discussion."
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OD2 Launches Penny-Per-Song Streaming Jukebox More

OD2 Launches Penny-Per-Song Streaming Jukebox

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  • Just Pains Me... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Black-Man ( 198831 )
    To see Brian Eno on the side of the borg. What is the world coming to?

    • Err... he's been on the side of the borg since he did the "Microsoft sound" for Win98.

  • A voice of sanity... (Score:4, Funny)

    by JosKarith ( 757063 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @06:46AM (#9428185)
    Just think on this - Peter Gabriel is now a voice of sanity in the music biz.
    And you listen to the stuff these people put out. They could be sneaking _anything_ into your subconscious in their music...

  • Price isn't bad, but... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by chewy_2000 ( 618148 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @06:47AM (#9428188)
    sod using WMP9. No way I could live with that. I'm not even asking for non-DRM'd files (although that would be ideal), but something a bit more cross platform is a pre-req for me. I should be able to play it on what software on whichever OS I choose.

    • I've got to agree with this one. I develop multi-platform software, which means that, as of right now, I vary between working with three different OS's (OSX, Solaris, and various flavors of Linux) on four different architectures (ppc, x86, x86-64 and sparc), which isn't to brag, but to say that my current desktop at any time is more likely than not to be unable to play windows media.

      Also, I think DRM is a bit silly, because it's a penny a song, and the people who are going to rip you off to save sixty cen

    • Re:Price isn't bad, but... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @07:01AM (#9428252)
      Are you telling me there's something Emacs can't do?

      I refuse to believe it!
    • ...I agree with your sentiment. WMP is crappy, IMHO. I would love to see something based on Winamp, for example. However, as another poster said, we have the opportunity to start our own company and run it using anything we wish. No I have to go make a sacrifice to Redmond so I don't get eaten.
    • If you won't pay for an OS, why would you pay for music?

      • Re:Maybe the thinking is (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dbarclay10 ( 70443 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @07:38AM (#9428408)
        If you won't pay for an OS, why would you pay for music?

        There's a difference between won't and don't. Some of us, though you may find it hard to believe, don't care much about the sticker price of a working environment, so long as it gets the job done in a manner that's acceptable. It just happens to be that one of the best environments available today can be downloaded for free off the 'net (or paid for from a vendor like Red Hat).

        I, for one, would be perfectly happy to pay for an iTunes-like service (their restrictions are acceptable to me, though I'd prefer either MP3- or Ogg Vorbis-formatted files; the former is extremely portable, the latter is very nice and reasonably portable), just like I'd be happy to pay for an operating system which suited me. It's a pity that since my operating system *happens* to be free, I can't pay anybody to let me access their service :)

        • I, for one, would be perfectly happy to pay for an iTunes-like service

          Aren't we getting tired of that obligatory Simpsons joke by now? ;)

          Personally, I don't like restrictions. I chose a free OS primarily for the freedom. I think Audio Lunchbox [audiolunchbox.com] is fine but slow - it has non-DRM:ed oggs, with some records that are quite hard to find in physical record storse (notably early April March stuff).

          I guess it only goes to show that /. is a heterogenous community.

      • I don't have to pay $150+ for my OS, I have some money left over to spend on music.
      • If you won't pay for an OS, why would you pay for music?

        Troll, flamebait, ignorant moron. Why pay for an over-priced, under-powered, flakey and largely useless OS when you can get a proper one that works legitimately for free and Free.

        Some of us have principles despite the cynicism, ignorance and self-serving attitudes that prevail in this world.

        Believe it or not, I have a Free operating system for personal use and a commercial UNIX for business use. I also like to support good hardware manufacturers by b

    • I'm guessing the reason for this is so that you won't copy the music. The idea is that if they can control the software you use to get the music, they can make it harder for you to rip it. I say harder because... even though you may not get WMP9 to cooperate during the ripping process... you can still export that signal from your soundcard to another machine if you wanted to.

  • Nice deal (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Big Nothing ( 229456 ) <tord.stromdal@gmail.com> on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @06:47AM (#9428191)
    A penny per song is a nice deal, and the 350.000-track database should contain something for most people's taste - but why only UK, France, Germany and Italy? What about us in the rest of Europe?

    The article states that OD2 is "Europe's leading music download firm", and I've never heard of the company - which might explain why the service will not be available in my country...
    • And the iTunes service will only be available to the UK, France, and Germany. Obviously Apple's and OD2's definition of "Europe" is very lax.
      But in the end, they have to go where the money and population is, and build it up from there. Remember, some members of the EU are more equal than others.

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

        by pjt33 ( 739471 )
        It sounds like they're setting up restrictions on importing across EU borders though, and that sounds likely to be in violation of EU law. It'll be interesting to see whether or not anyone sues.

      • Nearly right.

        LONDON--June 15, 2004 [apple.com]--Apple® today launched its revolutionary iTunes® Music Store in the UK, France and Germany ... (blah blah PR) ... Apple also today announced that it will launch a European Union version of the iTunes Music Store in October of this year.

        If the EU is so unified, how come Apple et al can't provide an EU-wide service? Obviously Apple wants to, but maybe something in these other countries is blocking them?

        Perhaps it's not that Apple's definition of "Europe" is l

    • they've never had a site of their own. From the BBC article:

      Instead it provides the technology to retailers such as HMV, Virgin, MTV, MSN and Tiscali.

      I still haven't figured out how Peter Gabriel ended up as the EU force of Evil.

    • Re:Nice deal (Score:5, Interesting)

      by julesh ( 229690 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @07:07AM (#9428276)
      why only UK, France, Germany and Italy? What about us in the rest of Europe?

      Interesting question. Did you know that offering a product with restrictions based on residence in a particular country in Europe is illegal under EU regulations? The EU Ombudsman may be interested in this case.

      The article states that OD2 is "Europe's leading music download firm", and I've never heard of the company - which might explain why the service will not be available in my country...

      It seems from the Register's story that they've been operating a service that's co-branded with Coca Cola (I think I remember seeing something about it somewhere before, never paid much attention), so they've probably not used their own name to market it before.
    • The rest of Europe has Windows versions without Windows Media Player 9.
    • You're not a part of Germany, France, Italy or the UK, sorry mate, you dont live in Europe. :-)

    • 1 Penny (Score:3, Interesting)

      by simpl3x ( 238301 )
      I agree that the cost of music needs to approach this cost, and as soon as that happens, I'll likely ditch the cds permanently. It's too bad that the music industry has this perspective that we need to own the music. Like every other commodity, costs decline as distribution increases. That said, I'm not holding my breath for wide distribution of songs via this method. iTunes really has a great model, although I wish that albums could be downloaded multiple times. I want to own the license not the data.
    • A penny per song is a nice deal, and the 350.000-track database should contain something for most people's taste

      I bet they don't have the Funky Gibbon by the Goodies.

  • Sign of things to come? (Score:5, Informative)

    by WordODD ( 706788 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @06:48AM (#9428194)
    With the massive proliferation of online music distribution services popping up all over the internet could this finally make the RIAA take notice that the old channels of distribution are finally dead and they need to reinvent themselves to stay alive? It will only be a matter of time before non-RIAA artists starting getting exposure through these new channels and the RIAA loses their shakey grip on the industry. Maybe they will never actually admit to being dinosaurs but that won't stop them from becoming extinct.

  • Sounds like a great idea to me... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by iapetus ( 24050 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @06:49AM (#9428200) Homepage
    ...right up to the point where he says 'will only work with users of Windows Media Player', and there my interest tails right off.
    • I agree .. even despite the fact that the author "guesses" that there will be gateways written between the 2 DRM systems.

      Do you really see microsoft playing nice in the DRM market? I just can't see them voluntarily building a gateway from their software so that users can use anything but Windows to listen ... they work so hard putting patents on everything they develop, I can't see how that fits into the plan (especially with Apple).

  • ITMS europe (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Who want a subscription service anyway?? Not me. I've just purchased a song from the UK iTunes store and it's now mine, all mine! Don't even think about whining about DRM. Oh Puhleeese.

  • Surprises (Score:4, Informative)

    by Bricklets ( 703061 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @06:51AM (#9428206)
    iTunes surprised a lot of people when they hinted one week ago that they would launch iTunes in Europe today. Well, it's not exactly Europe (just UK, Germany, France), but everyone is running scared right now trying to prevent Apple from doing in Europe what they have done in the US.

    Competition is good for everyone, especially for the consumers. Let the music war begin.

    • Re:Surprises (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Excuse me?

      What Apple has done in the US is to prevent/delay Microsoft from extending its monopoly into audio. Apple's success can only help competition by promoting another format to WMA, which is shoved down the throat of the unwashed masses by M$ through its illegally-gained tight-fisted control of the desktop.

      It pains me each time I hear that there is "competition" when some oblivious sod points to, say, 30 different WMA players, players who'se format is controlled by a convicted monopolist hell-bent

    • Re:Surprises (Score:3, Interesting)

      by reptilicus ( 605251 )
      ---everyone is running scared right now trying to prevent Apple from doing in Europe what they have done in the US---

      What exactly has Apple done in the US, other than offering the most compelling service that customers seem to prefer over the competitors?
      • What exactly has Apple done in the US, other than offering the most compelling service that customers seem to prefer over the competitors?

        Exactly. Competitors in Europe had hoped to build up a userbase before Apple arrived. I'm certain Napster had expected more than a two week head start. Well, now that Apple has arrived, the competition starts to heat up. As I stated, it's good for all consumers involved no matter what service they use.

        You seem to have gotten the impression that I was commenting against

  • BBC Technology? Surely not.. (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Err.. he doesn't work for BBC Technology, he works for BBC News Online. BBC Technology is a very different entity.

  • From od2.com (Score:3, Informative)

    by StripedCow ( 776465 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @06:52AM (#9428210)
    Infrastructure

    OD2 offers a complete end to end solution for the digital sale, promotion and distribution of Music.

    The OD2 infrastructure is designed to serve all channels, devices, platforms and formats. This means that the consumer will be able to purchase digital product to their PC, Mobile phone, TV or portable devices - like MP3 players. OD2 provides all the tools required for labels to sell and promote their music digitally and, as the market evolves, OD2 will ensure that the label's music is sold in every viable media.

    Performance

    * Systems capable of delivering over 1,000,000 streams and downloads per day.
    * New European clusters will extend this to over 2,000,000 in Q1 2000.

    Reliability

    * Full Application and System Monitoring 24x7x365.
    * Automated test downloads every 120 seconds.
    * Hardware and software redundancy throughout OD2 systems architecture.
    * Rigorous development, test and deployment processes. (OD2 is an accredited Microsoft Solutions Provider).

    Security

    * Digital Rights Management (DRM) based on Microsoft Version 7 Rights Manager.
    * Enables a range of distribution and playback controls to be defined.
    * Media protected internally and externally using latest security and encryption techniques.

    Multi-platform

    * Architecture enables new DRM's to be inserted for support of new platforms e.g. Cable TV, ADSL, 3rd Generation Mobile.
    • OD2 is an accredited Microsoft Solutions Provider

      Well, I'm impressed. What does this mean, that they've got a few MCSEs working for them?

  • MPlayer anyone? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Welsh Dwarf ( 743630 ) <(d.mills-slashdot) (at) (guesny.net)> on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @06:56AM (#9428228) Homepage
    Seriously, does anyone have experience with trying to use MPlayer on the site with the windows codecs installed?

    • Seriously, does anyone have experience with trying to use MPlayer on the site with the windows codecs installed?

      I'm not certain, I use a very old version of mplayer myself, but I don't believe it implements the DRM aspects of the more recent versions of media player, so probably not.
    • I had the same thought, but I just hear the previous poster mention 'DRM, so possibly not possible'. When it's stream ripping that you want, many soundcards nowadays allow you to capture the digital playback stream before it is D/A converted, just save that stream instead of the network stream and you should be fine too. As usual with streamed audio, don't expect premium sound quality.
    • I've got mplayer on gentoo, it works pretty well most of the time apart from the occasional crash. Doesn't do DRM yet though.
  • It's pretty tough to argue with a legal listen for 1-2 cents (exchange rate varies). I bet that 50-100 times is about as many as I could listen to a song before I'm bored of it anyways, and for 99 cents I can get either that, or I can own the song. Plus, unscrupulous listeners could always record the stream!
    • Except you have to be sat at your PC to use it.

      I dont know anyone else with lounge systems, and I do my listening on the move, so the service is useless to everyone I know.

      This site may be of use for previewing tracks, buts thats about it.
      • Why not use a pocket PC? If you could get a fast enough connection, it would be like having an iPod with a pseudo-infinite song library, only the songs cost a few cents. That would be pretty awesome.
        • Surely that would assume a blanket cover of WiFi whereever he went though? Personally, I Think it's a lot easier to buy yourself an itunes song for 79p.
    • It's pretty tough to argue with a legal listen for 1-2 cents (exchange rate varies). I bet that 50-100 times is about as many as I could listen to a song before I'm bored of it anyways, and for 99 cents I can get either that, or I can own the song. Plus, unscrupulous listeners could always record the stream!

      It was also pretty tough to argue w/99 cents when iTunes came out unless you were the RIAA "trying to protect your artists'".

      How long do you seriously believe that the money-grubbing music cartels are
      • If only artists still had sinecures, so that they could be compensated by the very wealthy to simply produce works. It's at least time-consuming, if not expensive, to make great recordings... I would like to see a way for artists to at least earn a living wage so they can produce the music.

  • Linux support (Score:2, Interesting)

    by sploo22 ( 748838 )
    ...and will only work with users of Windows Media Player' 9.

    Any idea whether this'll work with the MPlayer Win32 codecs? :)

  • Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @07:00AM (#9428247) Homepage
    I've been doing a lot of work related research into UK/European online music services, and from what I've seen so far, OD2's basic package that they give to people (like MyCokeMusic) is a horrible restrictive service.

    This new service package sounds interesting, but honestly, all it seems like to me is an extended preview that you pay for.

    Granted its only 1P, but their ultimate goal is to get people to buy the whole song...and this sounds like kind of a scummy way to do it.

    Unfortunately, this may be the only way they are ABLE to do it because I'm sure they have to pay the labels for the streaming rights to the song, so they couldn't just offer up a whole preview for free.

    I'm curious though, can anybody spot any difference between the sites that use OD2's main product other than the brand name/images/colorscheme slapped onto the webpages?

    As far as I know they all use the same catalogue, same terms, and same price, so I can't see how they are differentiated at all other than by Brand.

  • Link to BBC Coverage of iTunes Europe launch (Score:4, Informative)

    by CdBee ( 742846 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @07:00AM (#9428248)
    Europe launch for Apple's iTunes [bbc.co.uk]

  • Business Model (Score:5, Interesting)

    by IrresponsibleUseOfFr ( 779706 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @07:00AM (#9428249) Homepage Journal

    I don't know. I mean, a penny-a-song is pretty cheap. But, something about me wants to pay once and be able to play a song as much as I want.

    If I kinda of only liked the song and wanted to hear it only once in a while. I'd probably wait for them to play it on the radio. If I really liked a song, I'd pay a buck so I could listen to it when ever I wanted and be done with it.

    The only time I see this as useful is if you are playing a song that you don't like that much, but somebody else would. For example, hosting a party or you have a date at your house and you figure Wierd Al isn't going to set the mood you want.

    I just don't see those situations of use setting up a sustainable business model for the costs they are going to endure. Of course, if it becomes _the_ method for DJ'ing. You might get the volume you need, but I still doubt it.

    Of course, this is just my opinion and I could be wrong (and frequently am).

    • Of course, if it becomes _the_ method for DJ'ing.

      I don't know about you, but real DJing often involves a bit of listening to your songs to work out the ideal cue points and rough song structure..

      Unless you mean those hired monkeys that play nothing but cheese and get paid to press 'next' on their CD players and, every so often, change to another CD... But I doubt that would be legal, considering the 'broadcast' factor of playing the music to a public crowd.
  • iTunes launches in the UK.

    Great! Where can I sign-up?!

    But the only portable device it supports is the iPod.

    Oh well, I guess I'll stick to burning CDs.

    Seems that the only way I can play music from iTunes on my MuVo is to burn a CD and then rip the CD, which is a bit more hassle than I'm willing to go to. So I'll pay a few pounds more, get the CD with the nice packaging, track listing, lyrics, etc, the eeeevil record companies will have more of my money and Apple will have none.

    Apple wants to limit my
    • Oh well, I guess I'll stick to burning CDs.

      The labels don't want the content online where it can be copied and shared. If they sign up to provide content and price it and criple it so nobody uses it, but buy's the CD from the conventional retailer instead, then they won.

      If they wanted it to work, all they had to do was provide high quality un-encumbered MP3's and other formats for a nominal charge. Subscribing to a newspaper isn't a budget buster, so there isn't much 2nd hand market for pass me along ne

  • Or if you are a Mac user... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anim8me2 ( 637936 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @07:08AM (#9428284)
    You could always just capture the penny streams with AudioHiJack (I am sure there is a PC equivalent as well).
    • I had to do this recently - my girlfriend bought the latest Ash single online from their site and was very confused when she received a WMA she couldn't do anything with rather than an mp3 or ogg (we have a houseful of Debian/FreeBSD boxes).

      I ended up playing it with Windows Media Player inside VMWare and using Sox to capture the stream and re-encode it to an MP3.

      It stinks that I have to do this for something that I have legitimately paid for. And no, they took the money before letting you know what you w

  • Complement not competition (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Alkonaut ( 604183 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @07:11AM (#9428294)
    This looks like an excellent way of "browsing" for music which is not played on the radio. I mean, it's not really competing with the $.99 "own the song"-price of iTunes, but rather it seems like a neat way to preview a lot of songs once (at a penny each) then buy the ones you like on cd or from iTunes.
  • Ultimately, "the various formats need to be compatible," Averdieck says. "This will take a while to get sorted out, but it will happen. Meanwhile, Windows Media Player has a head start over all the other formats in Europe. And in the UK, there are 8.9 million PCs with Windows Media Player 9."

    If only they'd heard of the MP3 format...
  • OD2 Launches Penny-Per-Song Streaming Jukebox in Countries that don't use Pennies.

  • Great (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by Stevyn ( 691306 )
    Something for the ogg and drm zealots to bitch about today.

    A penny a song isn't bad, but it could get annoying. I leave my computer with music playing. When I come back, knowing I wasted 10 cents would get annoying. If anything, I think that little annoyance would hinder people from playing music freely. It's still cheaper than $20 for the shrink wrapped cd or 99 cents for the song from apple. This service is probably better for teenagers who like to listen to the pop hits rather than actually invest
    • How hard is it to press pause? As others have pointed out it will only be a matter of time before people figure out how use stream-rippers with this service so you can get more than your money's worth.

  • IE Lock in (Score:2, Interesting)

    by GoogleGuy ( 754053 )
    Good idea, but its only accessable with Microsoft Internet Explorer. WTF? I use Firefox and am not going to switch back ;-)

    • How the heck did you get modded funny? It's a valid point.

      So I guess nothing's changed since the last time I tried to look at OD2. If you ain't running IE, they ain't interested in ya.
      Well that's just annoying. I might still be a Windows user, but I went Mozilla-based well voer a year ago. Apart from a few selected uses (Windows Update and OWA), I do not use and will not use Internet Explorer.

      Once again they try and make a legal "solution" to the downloaded-music issue, and exclude many of the people w

  • Good business model (Score:3, Interesting)

    by The_Mystic_For_Real ( 766020 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @07:28AM (#9428365)
    This model of paying a negligible fee to hear music online is exactly the kind of thing the record industry needs to profit. It taps the impulse market that had previously been dominated by piracy. Good for them.

    Of course, ripping songs from this service could eventually become rampant.

    • what quality is ripped from stream ? i don't like it that much ...

      OTOH they claim that their service gives security, as in "no need to open 245 port for peer to peer" ... That's worth a penny.

  • Um.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by beelsebob ( 529313 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @07:29AM (#9428374)
    It's not ahead of the iTunes Europe debut... I live in the UK, I have a UK credit card, and I have downloaded music in my iTunes folder - the iTunes UK, France and Germany stores are open.

    • Splitting hairs (Score:3, Informative)

      by hellfire ( 86129 )
      The definition of what Apple is doing is confusing on its face and the poster of this article made it worse.

      The iTunes Europe debut is for the rest of Europe, while Germany, France, and the UK already have iTunes. Yes it doesn't make perfect sense, but calling the debut iTunes "rest of Europe" wasn't as catchy.
  • ... big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big...

  • Price isnt the issue here (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    They really need to offer something better then the legally grey apps before I'll consider them.

    Maybe a massive site with full archival downloads. I'd pay for that, even per download, simply for the convenience of knowing where to get it, and the gaurentee behind the quality and speed of download.

    Otherwise, they are just being woefully hopefull, or dismissive of online distribution. "see, see, we charged 5 cents a download for a crappy file that most people cant play where they want. thats PROOF that onli

  • $1.60 per day (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hoggoth ( 414195 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @07:58AM (#9428540) Journal
    Let's see... the average song is 3 minutes, one penny per 3 minutes, let's unrealistically assume I work 8 hours a day. That's $1.60 per day to have this playing all day. That's about $400 per working year.

    I think I could buy a lot of music on iTunes for $400 and listen to it for more than a year.

  • But how... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by JustNiz ( 692889 )
    How and why would they limit this to some countries only?

    Physical location is just about meaningless within the internet.

    This is whats gving governments like China headaches because they can't control the propaganda anymore. Why should the record comapnies think they can control it?
  • Yet more energy being poured into "it'll only play on this system for that amount of time if your blood group matches X and your eyes are blue" schemes. All we want is a way to buy and download music we like at realistic prices (not the CD gouge) which we can then play where we want, when we want. Worried about pirates? WELL ITS GOING TO HAPPEN WHATEVER YOU DO until you directly pump the stream into friggin DRM cochlea implants. Fact is not all of us wanna give away what we buy. So many of us CRAVE the c
  • They are selling downloads for a penny each and (presumably) making money.

    Just goes to prove that there's absolutely no reason they couldn't just sell MP3 downloads for 5 to 10 cents each and make money just fine. Hell, they would save a lot of their bandwidth and server expenses by not needing to stream the same data repeatedly.

    Any download service that offered a $19.95 subscription for 250 MP3 downloads would absolutely sweep the market. It's not even work the hassle of mucking around with P2P at that p

  • It's vile! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Peter Cooper ( 660482 ) on Tuesday June 15, 2004 @01:50PM (#9432945) Homepage Journal
    OD2 has actually had this feature for a while (streaming a song for 1p) and I think it's hideous. Forget the WMP stuff, and forget that it demands Internet Explorer... the tracks only play at 32kbps! I thought it was some sort of big joke (or malfunction) until I searched the Net and found out that, indeed, 32kbps was the order of the day. 32kbps? I'm willing to bet my almost-deaf grandmother could tell how poor the quality is at 32kbps in WMP compared to even a 128kbps MP3. Steer clear!
  • This seems to fill a niche where people had been asking for a wide selection of limited use, low quality songs that can be legitmately downloaded for next to nothing, in order to hear new artists or screen songs before spending more money on a high quality version that they get to keep.

    You don't need cd quality sound to determine whtether a song is worth your dollar, and most songs you can pass judgement after a play or two.

    Of course, 350,000 songs is not exactly an extensive library, especially since one

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