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Music Media IT

Legal Music Downloads Increase in 2005 236

Posted by samzenpus from the still-missing-napster dept.
GraWil writes "The CBC is reporting there is marked increase in legal music downloads in 2005. American internet users downloaded 158 million individual songs from January to June 2005, compared with 55 million during the same period in 2004; during the same period, U.S. CD sales decreased by 7%. According to Peter Jamieson, head of the British Phonographic Industry, "the record industry has enthusiastically embraced the new legal download services ... and now we're beginning to reap the rewards". In the UK, sales of seven-inch vinyl singles were also up 87% on last year."
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Legal Music Downloads Increase in 2005 More

Legal Music Downloads Increase in 2005

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  • RIAA's response.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by InsideTheAsylum ( 836659 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @10:26PM (#13060167)
    OMG!! teh downloads are bringing down our profits!

    • Re:RIAA's response.. (Score:5, Informative)

      by pahles ( 701275 ) on Thursday July 14, 2005 @01:51AM (#13060994)
      Joke aside, but are they? These are legal downloads, so about 65 cent per 99-cent-song is going right into the pocket of the music industry. Apple alone has sold almost 500 million songs, that's 325 million dollars, for doing nothing!

      • Re:RIAA's response.. (Score:2, Interesting)

        by archen ( 447353 )
        I think it probably is. A 99 cent song is still a lot less than the "$12+ for the entire CD just to get the song" situation we have now. Some will still download the entire album, but not all. I'm also guessing that impulse buying will increase.

        So what happens now? They dump all their money into Britney, and you download the 1 song they hype on TV. They then go and browse randomly - possibly downloading from other artists which the company doesn't really market. This all depends on them having music
      • The big problem with legal downloads is that the downloader doesn't know what the music will sound like until it is actually downloaded and played. Which takes a long time and consumes a lot of bandwidth. Internet downloading is very inefficient way to become introduced to new music.

        What the music download sites should do is get the 'artists' to agree to put one of their (hopefully best) recordings (3-5 minutes max) in MP3 or OGG format on a DVD-ROM. These DVD-ROMs can hold about 1000 songs in high-q

  • Trustworthy tracking (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jfonseca ( 203760 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @10:29PM (#13060187)
    I wonder how they conclude these things anyway when they have no clue how many songs were downloaded in the black market to begin with....

    I bet you the illegal music traffic tripled as well.

    If I had the time I could probably prove that broadband connections increased in number, prices fell, newer technologies connected more people, etc...

    This is a piece of not-so-well crafted corporate propaganda.

    • Re:Trustworthy tracking (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @10:40PM (#13060263)

      Nothing was said about illegal downloads, the article was about how many legal downloads there were, which they do know.

      • Re:Trustworthy tracking (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Xtifr ( 1323 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @11:33PM (#13060522) Homepage
        the article was about how many legal downloads there were, which they do know.

        Do they? There's plenty of music that's not under the purview of the RIAA. If they're measuring by sales, then their methods are about as reliable as those who measure software popularity by sales in a world where open source is growing by leaps and bounds. Anyone who has installed a dozen or more legal copies of Fedora or Debian from a single CD knows how silly that notion is. And the amount of legally redistributable music out there is many orders of magnitude larger than the amount of free/open source software. The fully legal Etree torrent site [etree.org] is reportedly moving Petabytes on a regular basis.

        (But your point that the article was not about illegal downloads remains valid.)
        • >The fully legal Etree torrent site is reportedly
          >moving Petabytes on a regular basis.

          But do you have to pay for downloading that music? The article states that it is paid music downloads that they report about, it is the very first word of the article.

          They would be wrong when they later claim the number of individual songs downloaded but I suppose one can assume it is also "paid" downloaded songs. Probably they DO miss some paid songs though.
          • Yes, I think you're right, but certainly the implication in the article is that "legal download" means "paid download". The headline for the article says "Legal music downloading leaps...", but the only evidence they show is that paid music downloads have lept. That probably even means they're right, but I still don't like the implication that it's only legal if you've actually paid for it.

        • The fully legal Etree torrent site [etree.org] is reportedly moving Petabytes on a regular basis.

          Yeah, but 99% of it is Grateful Dead and Phish live shows . . . so much so that they actually have filters built into the search page specifically for these two bands.

      • the article was about how many legal downloads there were

        That's what the headline said, but when the article started it was actually talking about 'paid' downloads.

    • Re:Trustworthy tracking (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Solr_Flare ( 844465 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @10:47PM (#13060304)
      Agreed, but I do think the number of legal music downloaders *is* on the rise. It is on the rise from the non-computer savy people who are just now in the process of switching to broadband(yes broadband growth is undergoing the last "big boom" right now). These new average Joe's(my roomate is one of them) pick napster or itunes because:

      A) It's convenient.

      B) They know its legal so they don't have to worry about it

      C) The catalogs and prices are getting friendly enough.

      There will *always* be piracy. The idea is to make the legitimate methods more attractive and less hassle and the record companies are slowly succeeding. Now just imagine if they had listened to all of us and done this years ago when they should have instead of suing everyone. They'd probably be in far better shape.

      • Re:Trustworthy tracking (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Grail ( 18233 )
        I think the recording industry has to learn to use piracy as free marketing, rather than viewing it purely in terms of, "lost sales" (which is a fabricated argument anyway).

        Make the music available with complete information on where to find it - ID3 tags in MP3 files are ideal for this. Then as the file is circulated through the grey market, people will see the URL to your legal music download site and go, "gee, I wonder if they have anything else I like?"

        I contend that people truly desire to help the art
    • the issue about illegal traffic is it's difficult to determine how many downloaders would have been legitimate consumers. the RIAA's inability to accurately determine the size of the black market means they can't actually tell you how much money they're losing or how much they stand to gain.

      what is apparent to me is that record labels have endeavored to make it harder for the casual downloader of illegal music. the traditional p2p networks (emule, kazaa, etc) are damn near useless now because record labels

    • The hell they have... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Chordonblue ( 585047 ) on Thursday July 14, 2005 @01:00AM (#13060814) Journal
      "the record industry has enthusiastically embraced the new legal download services ... and now we're beginning to reap the rewards"

      Only because they were dragged kicking and screaming into it. They have done EVERYTHING in their power to prevent even the LEGAL downloading of material. In addition, they have used their might to stop or at least slow down acceptance of new media devices. I need only point to such debacles as:

      - The Cassette tape
      - The DAT/Cassette DAT
      - The CD-R
      - The digital MP3 player (remember when they tried to stop those?)
      - The Napster ruling
      - Internet Radio

      Etc... In short, they hate any technology they do not have 110% control over. If the music industry thought they could charge by the minute, they would.

      • Emmmmm...they already do. If you broadcast/record some concert material which has some copyrighted piece of art, you have to pay about minutes (AFAIK). Yes, it is in copyright law.

  • This article fails to mention... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Sawopox ( 18730 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @10:30PM (#13060192) Homepage Journal
    that only 14 seven-inch vinyl albums were sold in all of England last year.

    • On other hand (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      they sold a few million of them in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
    • I haven't bought a CD since 1998. I have no intention to ever buy a CD. But I'm not going to buy music either. I'll pay for a subscription service to a massive library. Rhapsody is great at just under $9/mo for unlimited music. But unfortunately, those of us who primarily live on our Macs have no such service. You can either pay a buck a song on iTunes or get nothing at all.

      If someone wants to put together an affordable subscription service with a client for Mac that has the same selection as Rhapsody or i
      • I am not sure of your tone. Are you saying that Rhapsody is better then iTunes or are you Saying Rhapsody should port to the Mac platform?
        I would agree with the second. As for the first it is a situation of how you listen to music. I myself buy less then 9 songs a month, so in my case iTunes is more affordable. I like the fact that there are different types of paying for music subscription vs per song. It allows the consumer to decide what is best for them based on their buying habits.
    • I know you are trying to be funny but apparently I am part of that demographic. I either download/buy MP3's/Ogg/Acc or if I want a special order or tangable product I go the the record store and order vinyl. Sure I wait two weeks but I get a nice product that I can keep. Mind you I only touch the vinyl once to rip it to mp3.

  • Of course (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mfloy ( 899187 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @10:30PM (#13060194) Homepage
    This was inevitable. The popularity of illegal music sites was a clear example of how many consumers loved the idea of downloading digital music. Most people didn't do it to cheat artists, they did it because they had no choice. Now that the labels are catching on they will be rewarded with huge profits. Now if only the TV and movie industry would catch on. There is big money to be made off legal movies and shows, just wait.

    • Re:Of course (Score:5, Interesting)

      by superpulpsicle ( 533373 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @10:44PM (#13060285)
      I have signed up to Rhapsody due to the advice of so many slashdotters. Well, not to mention my Napster trial sucked due to so many "buy-only" tracks.

      I thought it would be crazy for me to keep the subscription service for more than 2 weeks. To my surprise, I am listening to new stuff every day for the 6 months. Subscription still going unbelievably strong. That's like $120 spent on music... I know I wouldn't buy 12 CDs in 1 year. My only worry is that I run out of stuff to listen to eventually.

    • Re:Of course (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Jeff DeMaagd ( 2015 )
      Take 1:

      The popularity of illegal music sites was a clear example of how many consumers loved the idea of downloading digital music.

      I suppose they didn't like the idea of downloading analog music very much.

      Take 2:

      The popularity of illegal music sites was a clear example of how many consumers loved the idea of downloading free music.

      Take 3:

      Most people didn't do it to cheat artists, they did it because they had no choice.

      Of course, "downloading" the music directly from a CD was simply too hard.

      Seri

      • Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Mr2001 ( 90979 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @11:13PM (#13060433) Homepage Journal
        Of course, "downloading" the music directly from a CD was simply too hard.

        I know you were joking, but "downloading digital music" is about more than just being able to listen on your PC or your iPod - ripping tracks from a CD is no substitute. It means being able to hear any song instantly. If your friend sends you an IM saying "check out this song by band X", a minute later you can be hearing it, looking up related bands, and listening to their tracks too.

        To do that with CDs, you'd have to (1) live at the record store, and (2) run back and forth between the shelves and listening stations, trying everyone's patience, if the store even has stations where you can listen to all the CDs they sell.

      • Re:Of course (Score:3, Insightful)

        by sankyuu ( 847178 )
        Of course, "downloading" the music directly from a CD was simply too hard.

        I was gonna mod, but I'll post instead.

        When the GP said Most people didn't do it to cheat artists, they did it because they had no choice, the first thing I thought of is that it can be pretty hard to find music that I like where I live.

        Searching for music and buying it online is much more convenient, and buying only the tracks I like makes so much more sense.

        • Re:Of course (Score:3, Interesting)

          by chefren ( 17219 )
          Searching for music and buying it online is much more convenient, and buying only the tracks I like makes so much more sense.


          It depends on what type of music you like of course but I want whole albums. I also want physical media. If nothing else, physical media has second hand value.

      • Re:Of course (Score:2, Interesting)

        by terminateprocess ( 812697 )
        'd prefer to get the physical CD at a negligible amount more, most CDs I buy are priced around $10-$12 anyway

        I agree with your main point, but where do you find all your CD's for that cheap? Most stores that I have been to sell CD's mainly for $14-18, depending on how popular they are. However, the strangest part is that prices on CD's usually go up as they get older and harder to find. I personally like how iTunes has (more or less) adopted a flat pricing system, regardless of how much they could gouge p

    • Most people didn't do it to cheat artists, they did it because they had no choice.

      Right.... "most" people here in the U.S. live 500 to 1,000 miles away from the nearest Goody, Tower, MediaPlay, Borders, B&N, Target, K-Mart, WalMart, and shopping mall. They have no USPS, UPS, or FedEx service, so Amazon, Half.com, and any other online store can't deliver there.

      Left with no "choice" whatsoever, they downloaded music off the internet which, for some odd reason, they DID have access to...

      Funny how I

    • Most people didn't do it to cheat artists, they did it because they had no choice.

      Please stop perpetuating such utter nonsense. They CLEARLY had a choice, but simply refused to exercise the required displine. I exercised that choice (and still am). I have no regrets whatsover, and I can honestly say I played an honorable game, even if the RIAA is a greedy whore of an organization.
    • Now if only the TV and movie industry would catch on.

      This is OT but, the only problem with the TV and movie industry moving in the same direction is simply file sizes. Simply put, low res, low sound quality sound movies/TV episodes suck ass if the alternative is superior TIVO or buying the uber-high quality plus bonus features DVDs. Most Americans (lets not bring the foreign market into this) do not have broadband. Those that do get it from their workplace or from a public access (library, school...) Thro

      • "Simply put, low res, low sound quality sound movies/TV episodes suck ass if the alternative is superior TIVO or buying the uber-high quality plus bonus features DVDs."

        I dunno, low res, low quality, lossy mp3's sure did catch on quickly.

        Are there really THAT many people still in the US that only have dial up? Everyone I know has broadband (dsl or cable). Is it mostly rural people in the US that do not have broadband?

  • and the UK reports (Score:3, Funny)

    by tzuriel ( 855916 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @10:31PM (#13060202)
    sales of seven-inch vinyl singles were also up 87% on last year.

    I guess the natural connection between downloadable music and 45 RPMs has finally been realized in the United Kingdom.
    Huh??

    • exactly.

      as i said above, this is a piece of awfully crafted corporate propaganda.

      "ok our music sales are great because bananas are selling well in the UK and although we have no clue how many illegal downloads there were in torrent, soulseek and 200 other networks we still concluded that our sales are doing great, thank you"

  • Hm.. (Score:2, Funny)

    by ATAMAH ( 578546 )
    "According to Peter Jamieson, head of the British Phonographic Industry..."

    Gotta rehash own brain... read the above as According to Peter Jamieson, head of the British Pornographic Industry

  • It's called ease of use. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by VectorSC ( 721025 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @10:33PM (#13060215)
    When it's easy to do it legally (aka the iPod), people will do it legally. Why?

    Not because people have a great amount of respect for the law, but because we have a great amount of respect for the easy.

    • Not because people have a great amount of respect for the law, but because we have a great amount of respect for the easy.

      Also people are known to like not having to pay.

      • Re:It's called FREE. (Score:2, Interesting)

        by VectorSC ( 721025 )
        Ahh....but....if the outhouse costs a quarter, and the extra-splintery log over the snake pit is free...and, well, you only get bitten by the snakes on the arse every once in a while.. But these two aren't totally analogous. Downloading music illegally is pretty easy. But, after you have iTunes all setup, using the Music store is more seamless. a) Zip the music down, grab your iPod, and go. Instead of, b)search for it on the illegal file shares, get 250 results, find the result that was RIAA hacked, d

      • Re:It's called FREE. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by bersl2 ( 689221 )
        People also like on-demand, which isn't always the case with P2P. Some people will pay (extra) to have something now as opposed to later.

    • Seconded (Score:5, Insightful)

      by aftk2 ( 556992 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @11:16PM (#13060453) Homepage Journal
      I agree. When iTunes first started doing its thing, a lot of people griped that they didn't think there was a large enough difference between the cost of a CD and the cost of a downloaded album. They argued that you're not getting a physical product, and you're getting a lossy copy, so why does it still cost $9.99 (never mind that this is, in some cases, nearly a 50% reduction.)

      I never saw it that way. I always thought that the convenience and the speed with which I could acquire the album more than made up for not getting the CD, and not having a perfect, pristine copy. I had a Paypal balance a number of months back, and debated using it on Ebay, to acquire several albums, or on iTunes to do the same. I chose iTunes - even though I might have been able to get more albums, plus liner notes & the original CDs, through eBay. Why did I choose iTunes? Because I wanted the songs on my iPod that day.

  • Analogizing the debate... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sheetrock ( 152993 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @10:34PM (#13060222) Homepage Journal
    When one thinks of the ongoing struggles of the free music proponents vs. the commercial music proponents one might picture an argument between King Arthur and Robin Hood (fictional example obviously, as King Arthur was not a real person, but it has to be fiction to be an analogy.)

    The thing to realize is that both sides not only believe they are working towards the greater good but are objectively doing so even with radically different and diametrically opposed 'solutions' to the problem.

    It really puts things in perspective to realize not only that each side is right but that there is more to be gained for each to sit down and figure out what to do with the deer in the forest rather than constantly fighting over territory and methodology.

  • huh? give ppl a way to give you money more easily and they open their wallets? imagine what could have been if they had embraced the internet back in the 90's instead of fighting it tooth and nail. just like audio tapes, just like video tapes. they fought so hard to stop these scary, uncontrolable, make-copying-easy technologies. and they turned into cash cows.
  • I know I would pay for a service where if I paid a certain amount of money I could get access to a BT tracker that was distributing DRM-'ed video files. I wouldn't mind signing up for a "pay-by-the-show" format, in case I miss an episode. Especially now that my favorite shows(Stargate SG-1, Lost, etc.) are trending towards more arc-ish storylines, so I won't get lost with the story. Granted, most TV programming doesn't have enough story to make these kinds of things worthwhile. I mean, why do I care if Jerry gets eliminated on Survivor 2000:The Last Place on Earth We Haven't Filmed In Yet?

  • Easy? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jcnnghm ( 538570 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @11:05PM (#13060388)
    I just tried Napster again yesterday for the first time in over a year, but it still suffers from all of the problems that I had with it last time.

    The catalog is incomplete, to really replace Limewire, it has to offer ALL of the songs I want. That includes some pretty obscure songs. Basically, my personal library is 1,500 songs or so off of Limewire. Napster's whole library seems to show about 750,000 songs. The legal library is 500 times the size of my own, but I don't like one in every 500 songs, probably only 1 in 1,000, if that, so there are huge gaps.

    DRM sucks. It basically turns digital music into something that can only be effectively used while sitting right in front of the computer. I want a standard format (MP3) that I can burn to standard audio CDS, use on my Rio MP3 player, and burn to data discs that will work in an mp3 cd player, or my set top dvd player. DRM makes much of this impractical. Of course there is the argument that everybody would just steal the MP3's provided by the service. But why bother. If they cost $1 each, and I could do whatever I wanted with them, and they were good quality, not to mention legal. I wouldn't hesitate to skip the Limewire hassle and just by directly from them.

    And where in the hell is the quality that was supposed to be associated with the pay services. What is stopping Napster from offering up the songs at 512k instead of the paltry 128 that they seem to be using now (yeah, wma makes a difference, but I still want bigger files). I would be happy spending even $2 per song for 512 DRMless MP3's that are legal. Instead, the stuff Napster sells sounds the exact same as the MP3's that came off of Napster 1. Not what I was expecting. I want 14mb downloads at 5mbps+/second, and why not, except for the size I can get everything else off of Limewire.

    Further, I have to boot into Windows to use Napster or itunes (not counting pymusique). I don't like doing that, and I really can't play drm'd wmas under linux.

    Limewire is still the best option. It's fast for a Java Application, it runs on anything with a virtual machine, can easily max out my download bandwidth, and I can use the files however I want. Of course, most of the files aren't legal, but the legal files can't do what I want so what good are they?

  • great... (Score:4, Informative)

    by grrrl ( 110084 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @11:10PM (#13060420)
    so where the freak is iTunes AU???

    I'd really love to be into this "legal" download sensation but noone will sell to me (and if it doesn't work on my pod I'm not interested).

  • Some people don't want to be happy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nugget ( 7382 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @11:16PM (#13060451) Homepage
    There are people in this community who will continue to lobby against legal downloads no matter what the terms or what technology is used. I swear, sometimes I think that if Linus himself started a company that sold no-DRM OGG Vorbis songs for a penny a piece and you got a free blowjob from Natalie Portman with every 10 purchased tracks that we'd still see posts on slashdot justifying P2P piracy because we didn't get to pick out Natalie's outfit when she showed up at our parent's basement to deliver.

    There are people who read news like this who are encouraged that market is beginning to respond (as markets always do) and there are people who read this news and get grumpy because it just got a little bit more difficult to continue to rationalize their greedy piracy.

    How did you react?
    • Linus himself started a company that sold no-DRM OGG Vorbis songs for a penny a piece and you got a free blowjob from Natalie Portman with every 10 purchased tracks.

      Oblig. Simpsons Quote:

      Your ideas intrigue me, and I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter.
    • How did you react?

      I went out and bought a CD direct from the artist.

      KFG
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • I'll take CDs thanks (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bsytko ( 851179 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @11:35PM (#13060542)
    I wouldnt download music from these services anyday. Why? The quality is just too bad. When I get a CD, I listen to it for the quality of sound not because of price. For me, I would rather buy music and get a better sounding product, than download.
    • CDs are still far worse sounding than vinyl.

      CDs may sound better than most MP3 files "find", but CDs sound worse than records.

      • Re:want quality? then buy vinyl (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Frank Palermo ( 846883 ) on Thursday July 14, 2005 @01:42AM (#13060963)
        "I'll be so glad when you vinylphiles finally all die out.

        Hey, I tease. :)

        But seriously... Nyquist and all that."

        Nyquist and all that? All that the Nyquist theorem says on the subject is that a sampling audio system like PCM should, in theory, be able to reproduce signals with frequencies up to 1/2 of the sampling rate faithfully. But in the real world, there are at least two problems with that:

        1) The low-pass filters used on the signal path are physical devices, not theoretical concepts. As such, they can't be absolutely perfect... they introduce phase distortions and begin attenuating at frequencies somewhat lower than 1/2 Fs.

        2) Even if the filters were "perfect" (not attenuating or introducing phase distortion until 1/2 Fs, at which point the attenuation becomes infinite)... well, the jury is still out on whether 22050hz (the theoretical upper bound given the 44.1khz sampling rate of CDs) is really high enough. There's some evidence to suggest that even if we can't "hear" frequencies above 22.050khz, they can have an effect on the way we perceive lower frequencies that we can hear.

        Just to be fair to both sides of the argument though...

        "CDs are still far worse sounding than vinyl." ...only on excellent vinyl playback equipment. It tends to be tougher to produce a mechanical device like a turntable cartridge with the same level of consistency that can be expected when producing ICs and the like. That (along with other factors like simple supply and demand) is why decent vinyl playback stuff tends to be quite a bit more expensive than decent CD players do. I have a reasonably high-end turntable and I enjoy using it tremendously... but I have to admit it wasn't cheap compared to digital gear in its league.

        To return to the digital downloads aspect of the article a bit though... I have to completely agree with the poster who shuns download services for poor quality. The only times I've extensively used iTunes were the Pepsi free song promotions, and if I found any songs I really really liked... well I went on Amazon or to my local record store and sought out the CDs to re-rip as DRM-free Apple Lossless. Better sound quality and the ability to use the format of my choice will make CDs the clear winner in my book for a long time to come.

        -Frank
        • 1) The low-pass filters used on the signal path are physical devices, not theoretical concepts. As such, they can't be absolutely perfect... they introduce phase distortions and begin attenuating at frequencies somewhat lower than 1/2 Fs.

          This is where oversampling and interpolation comes in. You cannot "create" frequencies above 22.05kHz - they're just not there any more. However, what you *can* do is increase the sample rate and interpolate the "gaps". This doesn't sound like much of a win until you r

        • Actually, digital sampling *isn't* perfect. There's a very legitimate reason why CDs can sound worse than vinyl, and why tube amps can sound better than transistor amps. (I say "can" - I can't hear the difference most of the time, but poorly mastered CDs and improperly connected amps can create some awful messes of noise).

          For CDs, the answer is fairly simple. A digital system has an upper limit. Exceed the limit, and the signal is hard-clipped. The sound of clipping is *very* harsh and quite awful (to most

  • You are kidding! (Score:3, Funny)

    by skingers6894 ( 816110 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @11:38PM (#13060556)
    "the record industry has enthusiastically embraced the new legal download services ... and now we're beginning to reap the rewards"

    More like:

    "the record industry was lead by the balls kicking and screaming into download services...and now we're beginning to rape the rewards"

  • In related news . . . (Score:3, Informative)

    by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @11:39PM (#13060560)
    Apple has posted record profits ($320 M) for the third quarter. [apple.com] Apple shipped 6.2 million iPods in the quarter. Also sales of computers were up 35%. It seems that there really is a halo effect.
  • I've experimented with three of the top mp3 downloading services: iTunes, AllOfMp3 and Napster. And of the three, AllOfMp3.com [allofmp3.com] was clearly the fairest with the best selection.

    I guess calling them "music" downloading services is more accurate, because iTunes distributes songs in the mpeg4 format (I'm guessing only the iPod can play mpeg4's, because my MuVo mp3 player won't). Other annoyances include a circa 20 mg application I had to download and install just to have the privilege to shop at iTunes, the rather weak selection (I was looking for tracks off the new Seether album "Karma and Effect", which they didn't have) and lastly the .99 cost per track which is a little expensive. Nice interface though.

    Napster is so friggin' annoying, from the splash page to the pathetic selection (unless you like rap like R. Kelly *gag*) that I had to bail. They too didn't have any of the tracks I was looking for.

    Happily, AllOfMp3.com [allofmp3.com] did have all the tracks I wanted, and each track costs about 12 to 20 cents! This is by far the best deal I could find. The "catch" is you have to commit $10 from your credit card, but I easily got more than an album's worth of music I really wanted, and I'll continue to shop there for all my fist raising, head banging needs. The interface was simple enough to navigate (could be streamlined more, but I'm nit-picking) and I was able to download in mp3 format at various levels of quality. Highly configurable. IMHO, it's the best music download service on the internet.

    • Re:My experiences purchasing and downloading mp3s (Score:5, Insightful)

      by spagetti_code ( 773137 ) on Thursday July 14, 2005 @12:27AM (#13060723)
      Yes, Allofmp3 has by far the best combination of UI (just brilliant, kudos to the programmers), selection and price.

      But it's legality is quite [msn.com] dubious [techlawadvisor.com]and the RIAA has had a couple of goes at it. At the moment it lives in a loophole [museekster.com] of the russian copyright system that is unlikely to be closed - those russians have bigger problems to deal with first.

      So I guess it depends on how squeeky clean do you want to be???

      • But it's legality is quite dubious

        From your very own link:

        Museekster: The number one question for everyone that hears of Allofmp3 and MP3search is: "Are these really legal services". Can your clarify the situation on copyrights in Russia?

        Roms: Yes, the sites you mentioned conduct their business legally and are licensed by ROMS, in full accordance with Russian and international law.

        It is legal. OK not everybody is happy about that, but it's the law. Lots of laws have supporters and protestors. How is
      • So I guess it depends on how squeeky clean do you want to be???

        Or maybe whether you believe ripping off artists by copying their music is a good thing to do? There are plenty of alternatives (magnatune for one) which are DRM free, and you can still buy CDs. Most people however don't care, so long as the chance of being caught is vanishingly small. Same thing happens in nations without an effective police force; anarchy and those who can take, take, and fuck the rest of the world.

        Unfortunately people are
      • Your paying for allofmp3, who returns nothing to the artists/publishers and just puts the profits in there own pockets.

        It your going that unethical route anyway (which you should think hard about, being a worker, I enjoy be compensated for my work), I suggest you just pirate the stuff and not provide the Allofmp3 the profits. At least p2p your peers aren't getting rich off you.

    • If you like AllofMp3, you'll probably be interested in the latest attempt by the music industry to sue people who link to it.

      http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/61571 [heise.de]

      Come to think of it, they are probably going to sue you since you linked to it as well.
      • Come to think of it, they are probably going to sue you since you linked to it as well.

        You must be joking - you can't actually be so stupid. First, I live in Canada where the courts have ruled it's not illegal to download music from p2p networks (too lazy to dig up a news link). Second, as a previous poster mentioned, AllofMp3.com [allofmp3.com] is in full accordance with Russian and international law, so nothing I am doing is wrong. Maybe the RIAA isn't getting what they feel is their cut, but I could care less. I'll a

  • The true tragedy behind all this (Score:3, Funny)

    by Lord_of_the_nerf ( 895604 ) on Thursday July 14, 2005 @12:04AM (#13060656)
    I think we're missing the true tragedy here - the lawyers. They're going to have to go back to...pursuing justice!

  • Online music store for New Zealand & Aussie? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'd buy music if I could find somewhere that sells to Australasia - and that is actually legally allowed to sell these files. And no, don't point me to that dodgy Russian MP3 retail site. Until then KLR it is. :-)
  • Music Industry Profit Model for new distribution methods.

    Step 1 - Ignore.
    Step 2 - Start noticing people like this new method and prefer it over the current model.
    Step 3 - Sue everyone out of fear.
    Step 4 - Start encountering resistance.
    Step 5 - Start realising that it could work.
    Step 6 - Devise new models using the new method.
    Step 7 - Push it out into the mainstream and realise larger profits than before.

    Its been that way for centuries (eg piano rolls, cassettes, etc). Thank goodness we finally got to Ste
  • Sales of singles have been on the decline for years, long before downloading became an issue, but nobody really cared much because album sales were still strong. Now we all know that most albums contain maybe 2 or 3 songs we want to listen to and the rest is filler. Yes there are exceptions but not many. If the shift in legal music sales is away from shops to online distribution and people no longer feel the need to buy an album to get the songs they want then what's the point of making an album? What's th

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • You're forgetting one of the fundamental rules of capitalism. If the song is good, it will be bought. If the song is bad, it will not be. This puts tremendously more pressure on the song factories to turn out GOOD stuff because they know they can't force a bunch of crap down our throats anymore. They know those filler tracks won't be downloaded, so they will have to make BETTER MUSIC.

        Call it economic darwinism... call it whatever.. it works for the benefit of both consumers and artists.

  • What we need to do... (Score:2, Informative)

    by Jeffus ( 783068 )
    is support sites like eMusic. They off high quality, legal, non-DRM mp3s for 22-25 cents (depending on your monthly plan). Right now they are offering 50 free downloads from their very unique catalog (of which you can cancel if you like, but I'm sure not going to). Some of the stuff you can get from iTunes (so it's cheaper from eMusic.com) but a lot of you can't because it's from mostly independent labels or back-collections. If you like great music no-one's heard of, this is your site. The user-base s

  • Ha! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by NubKnacker ( 787274 ) on Thursday July 14, 2005 @03:56AM (#13061343)
    "the record industry has enthusiastically embraced the new legal download services ... and now we're beginning to reap the rewards"

    That one made me laugh. I'm not sure which is the funnier word, enthusiastically or embraced.

    Nice try making it look as if the industry was the one which ushered in the age of downloadable music. They did everything to stop it and when it steamrolled them over, they 'accepted' it and made it look like it was their creation.

    I wish I could warp to another universe, Trance Gemini style, where there was no napster, no kazaa and no BT and look at how enthusiastically they had embraced it there.

  • Once more, they've got you just where they want you, using their terminology and so gradually succumbing to their way of thinking. This article is not about measuring LEGAL downloads at all, but about measuring PAY-FOR dowloads. P2P filesharing networks are used to download immense quantities materialy legally: public domain material, stuff that's out of copyright, tracks released by bands who active encourage downloading. Most recently and visibly, of course, the BBC's Beethoven symphonies. None of thi
  • Vinyl records are very much making a comeback, particularly among teenage audiophiles. Doing a quick search on Amazon for 'vinyl' promptly reveals all number of new LPs - the most recent Manic Street Preachers album, for example, saw release on vinyl. I prefer vinyl to CDs, myself, so I'm certainly not complaining.

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