nothingx

So I'm sure most of you have heard of Pressplay before... for those that haven't, it's a completely legal alternative to Kazza and other music sharing applications, the only catch is, you've got to pay for it. Anyway, they recently started a free 3-day trial period, and with all the lawsuits being filed, I decided to check it out for free. For what it's worth, here's what I think of it:

Firstly, I must say this is the fastest way to download music I've ever seen. Downloads are blazing, and I litterally cap my cable modem. Much faster downloads than I usually get with any of the poplular filesharing programs. I also like how the music can be streamed instead of downloading first. If you're not sure if you want to download something, just stream it to check it out.

Second, I like how easy the interface is to use. It seems to be built off the napster concept... very clean and simple. No ads whatsoever. Another cool feature about the interface is the recommended artist panel. When you search for a particular artist, it gives you a list of similar, or other recommended artists. It makes browsing through the music very quick and pretty fun.

Third, I like that they allow you unlimitted downloading. You can download as much as you want, for one price, unlike some of the other services out there. A subscription will only cost you $10 a month. This isn't terribly bad considering its probably less than you would pay for a single CD in a month.

Now, that I've said everything I like, here comes the stuff I didn't like....

1) All the music is Microsoft DRM protected. This is the worst part of all. All of the music you download can only be played with a Microsoft blessed player such as WMP or the Pressplay application. The licenses on the files prohibit you from burning them to CDs, or copying them to another computer. If you tried to copy them, they wouldn't play. Also, the licenses expire at the end of every month. If you are subscribed to the service, the licenses will be updated, but if not, you're stuck with a bunch of broken files. (BOO!)

2) Selection is limited. While they do have a good deal of music available, its not nearly as much as you would want. Most popular artists are on there, but I can think of at least 4 or 5 that I couldn't find.

3) All the music is Microsoft DRM protected! I know I already said this, but it's really freaking annoying and stupid. Here's the thing, the player has to decode the music files into an analog signal that the soundcard can play... when this happens, you can easily record the sound off the soundcard and repack it into an MP3. All it really does is make it a big pain in the ass to get your music onto your portable MP3 player or burn to CD. It's just stupid. It doesn't actually accomplish anything. All its done successfully is tricked the RIAA into thinking their music is safe.

Pressplay is a pretty cool concept that I think could be worth it, but it's just not ready yet. In order to get my money, they're going to have to offer me something better than Microsoft's DRM (like plain 'ol MP3) and they're gonna have to get more artists on board. Until they do, I'm sticking with my old ways of getting music, and I suggest you do too. I'll still keep my eye on Pressplay and others like it, cause once they start giving us, the consumers, what we want, then I'll consider going down the legal path. After all, I'm not out to rip anyone off, but I'm not about to pay money for crappy service.

zztzed

That you hit your cable modem's max speed downloading from Pressplay really isn't that surprising, since in all likelihood they have many times more bandwidth than even a large group of people on Kazaa/WinMX/Gnutella/[insert your favorite P2P service with multipoint downloads here].

Though I've never used the service, I agree that DRM protection is obnoxious. I've run into that with free downloads before. MS's DRM supposedly has some kind of severe flaw in it or something that would allow files to be stripped of it, and I don't think it's one that's easily patched, so I wouldn't be surprised if there's a utility out there to un-DRM files. (Note that I'm not talking about unfuck.exe; there was some other flaw in their DRM that was exposed recently on Slashdot.)

And I agree that these services probably won't catch on in a big way until they start offering DRM-free, or at least less heavily-restricted, downloads. Of course, in the long run it won't solve the problem of true, large-scale piracy ... but a lot of that is controlled by organized crime, so I guess not even the RIAA's balls are that big.

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nothingx

You're refering to FreeMe.exe which works on the latest DRM protections. Unfortunately Microsoft cleaned that hole up, and its no longer useful. The author "Beagle Screamer" posted the source code though... so I imagine its only time before someone else picks it up and breaks it again.

zztzed

Actually, no, FreeMe only works on an earlier version of Microsoft's DRM. The latest hole involved monkeying with the DirectShow filter chain (detailed here), but as it turns out that method would recompress the audio, so it's not quite what I was thinking of.

As an aside, I love how one of the people who commented on that article said "at the end of the day you can *always* do LINE OUT->LINE IN if you really want to rip off some music and stop the artists/labels from getting paid." ... yeah, or if you DON'T WANT TO BE SHACKLED BY ASININE DRM CRAP. I would launch into a rant here about how while it's true that just because we pay for things doesn't mean we have an unlimited right to use them, it similarly doesn't mean that we should be faced with tighter restrictions just because it's possible to place such restrictions on these things, but ... well, I basically summed it up right there, and it's a little off-topic anyway.

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"It seemed to me that if humanoids eat chicken, then obviously they'd eat their own species, otherwise they'd just be picking on the chickens."

zenmaster10665

Found this on the bottom of their site...

So you are still paying the same price (or more) for a CD?

No way.

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"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.
He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."
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Speed_Gibson

Fuck that - I only use foobar2000 for audio files now, have had winamp completely uninstalled for quite awhile, and f'ing hate that worthless bloated piece of junk Windows Media Player.

I use Emusic - $9.95/month, No copy protection or restrictions at all, and excellent indie/jazz/etc selection (can't forget the COMPLETE George Carlin collection)
One possible "downside" for some people is the complete lack of of the pop crap on the site. The biggest downsides for me are
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0) that the files are/were (haven't used it in a bit now) in the inferior MP3 format @ 128kbps - would much rather prefer the option of Ogg-Vorbis or Musepack (Flac would be my first choice, but those would be too large for most dialup users)
1) They require you to use their downloader now - a small sacrifice in my opinion

nothingx

Hmmm... sounds pretty interesting. I'll have to check this one out and report back with the results.

tinfoil

Indeed. I would like to see what the deal with this and that Rhapsody service is as well.

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