So you're going to pay for music again eh? - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Mondak · 02-04-2004, 08:09 AM

Alright, Maybe I have extracted my pound of flesh from the music industry for ripping me off on all those CDs that were Eighteen bucks (jerks). I wish I could put them out of business for price fixing all those years, but what can I do.

Since it is increasingly difficult to steal music, I am going to have to start to try and pay for it again. The thing is that as far as I can tell, each service has little gottchas (here we go again....) that you have to deal with to use their service. The FAQ doesn't really tell you what they are and so I think you have to try the service before you know what they are. This means that my source of information is hearsay and really not that reliable at this point. For example, someone told me that itunes only let you download in their propriatary format that you can only play in their players. The format is called .cda or something. It also includes all sorts of spyware that tracks everythign you do with that file. I have no idea whether any of that is actually true.

I figured I would turn to my trusted friends at The TFP to help clear away the smoke. Please provide a review of the strenghts and weaknesses of the available download (pay) sites that are out there. Put your thoughts into catagories so that if one aspect is more important to someone than another, they may value that service higher. For example, I want a high quality MP3 file that I can use however I want. Someone else may prefer a cheaper price. The catagories I have come up with are

Technology - (What are the gotchas)

Price - (How much to DL, is there a subcription price, etc.)

Library - (How big is it? How extensive? Is it only recent pop or is it all older stuff, Etc.)

The services I know of are

Itunes
Musicmatch
Buymusic.com
Napster
Real

Feel free to add others.

Thanks a lot for the reviews and the effort

cheerios · 02-04-2004, 09:12 AM

ok, you're not quite right on iTunes, although I can't tell you a thing about the others.
tech: iTunes sells their songs in .AAC which is the audio codec from mp4, I believe (if I'm wrong, sorry). .aac will play natively in iPods, I'm not sure about other players. you CAN burn & rip the songs as mp3's though.
Price: in general, a buck a song, a 10spot an album. no subscription.
library: check out apple.com
your song will be licenced to play on 2 boxes. you tell apple what the other box is. check out their site, I believe there's a description on it. I'd elaborate but i'm late for rclass!!

bltzkriegmcanon · 02-04-2004, 09:36 AM

pay for music, meh, don't count on it from me.

13421 songs, I've got no desire to pay for them

Mondak · 02-04-2004, 10:15 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by cheerios
tech: iTunes sells their songs in .AAC which is the audio codec from mp4, I believe (if I'm wrong, sorry). .aac will play natively in iPods, I'm not sure about other players. you CAN burn & rip the songs as mp3's though.

your song will be licenced to play on 2 boxes. you tell apple what the other box is. check out their site, I believe there's a description on it. I'd elaborate but i'm late for rclass!!

That sounds awfully complicated. How do you go about turning them into MP3s? I have a CompaQ IPAQ mp3 player and I play the songs on my computer and finally in my car in the regular CD player. Portability is a big plus for me. Also, how do they track what machines I am playing this on? That is what I was referring to when I asked about spyware.

drawerfixer · 02-04-2004, 10:22 AM

Quote:

That sounds awfully complicated. How do you go about turning them into MP3s?

It sucks. You have to burn the music onto a CD, then rip the music back onto the computer as a MP3 format.

cheerios · 02-04-2004, 11:24 AM

spyware implies they're pulling information off your box to use for some nefarious purpose... it's nothing that sinister. They simply cannot sell you a file that you can immeadiately drop into kazaa & share w/ 2000 of your closest friends. remember, we're going legal here. As far as I can tell, the file(?) knows who it's allowed to be played by, and if someone else tries to play it the owner(you) has to authorize it. you can have 3 (sorryI was wrong earlier) people authorized to play your stuff at once. This is the best link I could find you... it's a tutorial on iTunes in general and the music store in particular, and hopefully it'll answer your questions... http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/tutorial/index.html

Mondak · 02-04-2004, 03:44 PM

Ok - good point cheerios. I think of anything that tracks my useage regardless of purpose as spyware. Just Semantics here.

From what I read on your link, I am starting to feel that itunes is a very good service for someone with an ipod(or a mac for that matter), but maybe not for me. I have a media computer hooked up to my surround sound system and playing music on that without a lot of onscreen instructions seems to be the key for me. Not being able to play the files I buy in Winamp (without a lot of conversion work to each file) might just be a deal killer for me and itunes. Dunno.

Anyone have any feedback on any of the other services?

Mephisto2 · 02-04-2004, 04:17 PM

I prefer to pay for music.

Theft does not appeal to me.

Mr Mephisto

Mondak · 02-04-2004, 04:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Mr Mephisto
I prefer to pay for music.

Theft does not appeal to me.

Mr Mephisto

What service do you use and how do you like it?

Mephisto2 · 02-04-2004, 04:55 PM

Call me old fashioned, but the service I use is the local HMV store! LOL

I usually listen to my music in the lounge or the car, so it doesn't really make sense to me to have all my CDs in MP3 format. I've been thinking of "going digital" but haven't got around to buying an MP3 player just yet.

Mr Mephisto

cheerios · 02-04-2004, 05:18 PM

Mondak: I'm not sure about winamps AAC abilities, so you may very well be right, but I couldn't let you off saying that copy-protection was spy-ware!

good luck in your search. yes, iTMS is wonderful for those who A: LIKE and USE iTunes, and B: those who own iPods... and apple did that on purpose to encourage the use of their products... can't blame em

what you should do, to try it out, go pick up some pepsi, they're giving away free songs under bottle caps right now... (assuming you drink pepsi products anyway) it's a free trial kinda thing.

Mondak · 02-04-2004, 05:49 PM

Hey - that is kinda interesting. I figured that there was some kind of active checking going on with a server every time you tried to play a song instead of traditional copy protection. I never really figured they could track which machines it played on (3) without some sort of validation of how many it had been on so far.

This brings up a good point though. I have a number of computers in my house / office at this point and there is a lot of hardware swapping going on. When I see a deal on a new MOBO and chip or something maybe I swap out. I bet that they would then say that I have a "new" computer. I would suspect that between my media PC and my main comp and any upgrades, the files I download today would be largely useless to me in 12 -18 months based on me "sharing" them too much. Interesting.

cheerios · 02-04-2004, 05:56 PM

I believe it's based on the OS ,although I could be wrong... i had to re-authenticate my computer to play juan's songs after I reinstalled... but if you do it for one song, you're good for everything you buy... honestly, I'm not sure exactly how it works. I don't see how it could REQUIRE an internet connection... :shrug:

Mondak · 02-04-2004, 06:23 PM

Yeah - but I bet that re-authenticate thing used another of your 3 computer uses. That means that you have only one left I am assuming (since your comp and his comp is 2).

Although I don't have any idea how it works, I don't know how else you could track how many times it had been put on a new computer. Maybe each file has its own tiny little hidden registry that tells it some number stored in your registry. The file counts down from 3 and when it is zero - you can not re-authenticate. If it is based on the OS, instead of your processor, that may be worse since even if you have the same hardware, you really need to reinstall every 12 months at BEST. (At least Windows - you mac people may have it easier). At least that way, you won't need a connection to the internet.

This MIGHT mean that the files will essentially self distruct and be useless after a period of time for even well intensioned computer users. Dunno. I do know it makes me wonder if all the services have this kinda thing with them or if I should just go back to swiping them. . .

EDIT: Oh yeah - I have been meaning to ask: who is Ed and why is he pissed?

darkure · 02-04-2004, 06:27 PM

I haven't tried any of the services personally. But the guy who runs BBSpot has done reviews of five or six of the online music stores. He doesn't go into the nitty gritty of all the DRM so maybe people on this board who have used the service can fill in any gaps.

http://bbspot.com/News/2003/12/digit...reviews_1.html

Halx · 02-04-2004, 06:45 PM

what bitrate are these music files that we're downloading?

I'm more a 320kps kinda guy and I CAN TELL the difference between 128k and 192k and 320k.

I'm not gonna pay a buck for 128k

Bigwahzoo · 02-04-2004, 08:18 PM

Here is a site that is interesting
http://www.allofmp3.com/index2.shtml
It is legal in Russia but probably not in the US. It is $.01 per megabyte and it has a huge selection of music. One of the best features is online encoding which allows the user to choose their own bitrate and file type. I suppose you would be fairly safe from the RIAA because I doubt Russia is going to cooperate with them!
They also have a plan for $14.95 a month that gives unlimited downloads.

phlox · 02-04-2004, 09:19 PM

If you still want to be evil and illegal, try soulseek. I luuurv it.

Mondak · 02-04-2004, 09:57 PM

I want to take a second to thanks darkure for the BBSpot Article. It was very enlightening.

I now understand the services better and I think I may try one or two of them out to see how things work. I will try to update any findings that I have. My big concern continues to be portability of the music. I don't want to buy music, just to have it self distruct on me when I change comps, so I will look for ways around this.

In a way, I WANT to be welcomed back into the world of respecting IP. Just about 100% of the software on my comp is above board. Music, as I mentioned, has been a different story.

Anyone else have any ideas on legally DLing music? Any more reviews or your own thoughts?

cheerios · 02-04-2004, 10:28 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Mondak

EDIT: Oh yeah - I have been meaning to ask: who is Ed and why is he pissed?

literally: ed is a female character out of Cowboy Bebop. metaphorically, Ed is me, and she's pissed 'cuz she feels mistreated in life. she was stressed before, and probably will return to being so, soon... we'll see.

Mondak · 02-04-2004, 11:15 PM

Is Ed the android maid gal? - ah crap - that is Big -O lol!

Well - I read your profile thingy and without knowing anything else, take your time with the whole job thing. Find something that you like and try not to get too stressed. You have an insanely bright future ahead....enjoy the ride.

juanvaldes · 02-04-2004, 11:52 PM

Ed is a human, and not a maid. Just a computer hacker in the series. I suspect "ed" will be back around test time (a week or two) and finals.

aarchaon · 02-05-2004, 03:03 AM

Hijack ahoy.

bundy · 02-05-2004, 04:45 AM

my only problem with iTunes is that they won't let me purchase any music from the site since i don't have a US address. i'm allowed to access the site and browse around... but it won't let me buy any music...

darkure · 02-05-2004, 06:02 AM

Mondak, it is no problem. I was looking to sign up for one of the services but wasn't sure which one and I found that article linked from slashdot while I was researching. I was leaning toward the Musicmatch streaming service but then I realized that finacially no service would work for me. So I just went back to the CDs I already own.

02-04-2004, 08:09 AM	#1 (permalink)
Mondak Industrialist Location: Southern California	So you're going to pay for music again eh? Alright, Maybe I have extracted my pound of flesh from the music industry for ripping me off on all those CDs that were Eighteen bucks (jerks). I wish I could put them out of business for price fixing all those years, but what can I do. Since it is increasingly difficult to steal music, I am going to have to start to try and pay for it again. The thing is that as far as I can tell, each service has little gottchas (here we go again....) that you have to deal with to use their service. The FAQ doesn't really tell you what they are and so I think you have to try the service before you know what they are. This means that my source of information is hearsay and really not that reliable at this point. For example, someone told me that itunes only let you download in their propriatary format that you can only play in their players. The format is called .cda or something. It also includes all sorts of spyware that tracks everythign you do with that file. I have no idea whether any of that is actually true. I figured I would turn to my trusted friends at The TFP to help clear away the smoke. Please provide a review of the strenghts and weaknesses of the available download (pay) sites that are out there. Put your thoughts into catagories so that if one aspect is more important to someone than another, they may value that service higher. For example, I want a high quality MP3 file that I can use however I want. Someone else may prefer a cheaper price. The catagories I have come up with are Technology - (What are the gotchas) Price - (How much to DL, is there a subcription price, etc.) Library - (How big is it? How extensive? Is it only recent pop or is it all older stuff, Etc.) The services I know of are Itunes Musicmatch Buymusic.com Napster Real Feel free to add others. Thanks a lot for the reviews and the effort

02-04-2004, 09:36 AM	#3 (permalink)
bltzkriegmcanon Holy Knight of The Alliance Location: Stormwind, The Eastern Kingdoms, Azeroth	pay for music, meh, don't count on it from me. 13421 songs, I've got no desire to pay for them __________________ What do you say to one last showdown? - Ocelot, Metal Gear Solid 3 The password is "Who are the Patriots?" and "La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo." "La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo." Gotcha. - The Colonel and Snake, Metal Gear Solid 3

02-04-2004, 03:44 PM	#7 (permalink)
Mondak Industrialist Location: Southern California	Ok - good point cheerios. I think of anything that tracks my useage regardless of purpose as spyware. Just Semantics here. From what I read on your link, I am starting to feel that itunes is a very good service for someone with an ipod(or a mac for that matter), but maybe not for me. I have a media computer hooked up to my surround sound system and playing music on that without a lot of onscreen instructions seems to be the key for me. Not being able to play the files I buy in Winamp (without a lot of conversion work to each file) might just be a deal killer for me and itunes. Dunno. Anyone have any feedback on any of the other services? __________________ All truth passes through three stages: First it is ridiculed Second, it is violently opposed and Third, it is accepted as self-evident. ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER (1788-1860)

02-04-2004, 05:49 PM	#12 (permalink)
Mondak Industrialist Location: Southern California	Hey - that is kinda interesting. I figured that there was some kind of active checking going on with a server every time you tried to play a song instead of traditional copy protection. I never really figured they could track which machines it played on (3) without some sort of validation of how many it had been on so far. This brings up a good point though. I have a number of computers in my house / office at this point and there is a lot of hardware swapping going on. When I see a deal on a new MOBO and chip or something maybe I swap out. I bet that they would then say that I have a "new" computer. I would suspect that between my media PC and my main comp and any upgrades, the files I download today would be largely useless to me in 12 -18 months based on me "sharing" them too much. Interesting. __________________ All truth passes through three stages: First it is ridiculed Second, it is violently opposed and Third, it is accepted as self-evident. ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER (1788-1860)

02-04-2004, 06:23 PM	#14 (permalink)
Mondak Industrialist Location: Southern California	Yeah - but I bet that re-authenticate thing used another of your 3 computer uses. That means that you have only one left I am assuming (since your comp and his comp is 2). Although I don't have any idea how it works, I don't know how else you could track how many times it had been put on a new computer. Maybe each file has its own tiny little hidden registry that tells it some number stored in your registry. The file counts down from 3 and when it is zero - you can not re-authenticate. If it is based on the OS, instead of your processor, that may be worse since even if you have the same hardware, you really need to reinstall every 12 months at BEST. (At least Windows - you mac people may have it easier). At least that way, you won't need a connection to the internet. This MIGHT mean that the files will essentially self distruct and be useless after a period of time for even well intensioned computer users. Dunno. I do know it makes me wonder if all the services have this kinda thing with them or if I should just go back to swiping them. . . EDIT: Oh yeah - I have been meaning to ask: who is Ed and why is he pissed? __________________ All truth passes through three stages: First it is ridiculed Second, it is violently opposed and Third, it is accepted as self-evident. ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER (1788-1860)

02-04-2004, 09:12 AM	#2 (permalink)
cheerios Banned Location: 'bout 2 feet from my iMac	ok, you're not quite right on iTunes, although I can't tell you a thing about the others. tech: iTunes sells their songs in .AAC which is the audio codec from mp4, I believe (if I'm wrong, sorry). .aac will play natively in iPods, I'm not sure about other players. you CAN burn & rip the songs as mp3's though. Price: in general, a buck a song, a 10spot an album. no subscription. library: check out apple.com your song will be licenced to play on 2 boxes. you tell apple what the other box is. check out their site, I believe there's a description on it. I'd elaborate but i'm late for rclass!!

02-04-2004, 11:24 AM	#6 (permalink)
cheerios Banned Location: 'bout 2 feet from my iMac	spyware implies they're pulling information off your box to use for some nefarious purpose... it's nothing that sinister. They simply cannot sell you a file that you can immeadiately drop into kazaa & share w/ 2000 of your closest friends. remember, we're going legal here. As far as I can tell, the file(?) knows who it's allowed to be played by, and if someone else tries to play it the owner(you) has to authorize it. you can have 3 (sorryI was wrong earlier) people authorized to play your stuff at once. This is the best link I could find you... it's a tutorial on iTunes in general and the music store in particular, and hopefully it'll answer your questions... http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/tutorial/index.html

02-04-2004, 04:17 PM	#8 (permalink)
Mephisto2 Junkie	I prefer to pay for music. Theft does not appeal to me. Mr Mephisto

02-04-2004, 04:55 PM	#10 (permalink)
Mephisto2 Junkie	Call me old fashioned, but the service I use is the local HMV store! LOL I usually listen to my music in the lounge or the car, so it doesn't really make sense to me to have all my CDs in MP3 format. I've been thinking of "going digital" but haven't got around to buying an MP3 player just yet. Mr Mephisto

02-04-2004, 05:18 PM	#11 (permalink)
cheerios Banned Location: 'bout 2 feet from my iMac	Mondak: I'm not sure about winamps AAC abilities, so you may very well be right, but I couldn't let you off saying that copy-protection was spy-ware! good luck in your search. yes, iTMS is wonderful for those who A: LIKE and USE iTunes, and B: those who own iPods... and apple did that on purpose to encourage the use of their products... can't blame em what you should do, to try it out, go pick up some pepsi, they're giving away free songs under bottle caps right now... (assuming you drink pepsi products anyway) it's a free trial kinda thing.

02-04-2004, 05:56 PM	#13 (permalink)
cheerios Banned Location: 'bout 2 feet from my iMac	I believe it's based on the OS ,although I could be wrong... i had to re-authenticate my computer to play juan's songs after I reinstalled... but if you do it for one song, you're good for everything you buy... honestly, I'm not sure exactly how it works. I don't see how it could REQUIRE an internet connection... :shrug:

02-04-2004, 06:27 PM	#15 (permalink)
darkure Addict Location: Dodging the ice pick	I haven't tried any of the services personally. But the guy who runs BBSpot has done reviews of five or six of the online music stores. He doesn't go into the nitty gritty of all the DRM so maybe people on this board who have used the service can fill in any gaps. http://bbspot.com/News/2003/12/digit...reviews_1.html __________________ COYW

02-04-2004, 06:45 PM	#16 (permalink)
Halx Please touch this. Owner/Admin Location: Manhattan	what bitrate are these music files that we're downloading? I'm more a 320kps kinda guy and I CAN TELL the difference between 128k and 192k and 320k. I'm not gonna pay a buck for 128k __________________ You have found this post informative. -The Administrator [Don't Feed The Animals]

02-04-2004, 08:18 PM	#17 (permalink)
Bigwahzoo Insane	Here is a site that is interesting http://www.allofmp3.com/index2.shtml It is legal in Russia but probably not in the US. It is $.01 per megabyte and it has a huge selection of music. One of the best features is online encoding which allows the user to choose their own bitrate and file type. I suppose you would be fairly safe from the RIAA because I doubt Russia is going to cooperate with them! They also have a plan for $14.95 a month that gives unlimited downloads.

02-04-2004, 09:19 PM	#18 (permalink)
phlox Tilted	If you still want to be evil and illegal, try soulseek. I luuurv it.

02-05-2004, 03:03 AM	#23 (permalink)
aarchaon Insane	Hijack ahoy. __________________ Green. Yellow. Blue.

02-04-2004, 09:57 PM	#19 (permalink)
Mondak Industrialist Location: Southern California	I want to take a second to thanks darkure for the BBSpot Article. It was very enlightening. I now understand the services better and I think I may try one or two of them out to see how things work. I will try to update any findings that I have. My big concern continues to be portability of the music. I don't want to buy music, just to have it self distruct on me when I change comps, so I will look for ways around this. In a way, I WANT to be welcomed back into the world of respecting IP. Just about 100% of the software on my comp is above board. Music, as I mentioned, has been a different story. Anyone else have any ideas on legally DLing music? Any more reviews or your own thoughts? __________________ All truth passes through three stages: First it is ridiculed Second, it is violently opposed and Third, it is accepted as self-evident. ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER (1788-1860)

02-04-2004, 11:15 PM	#21 (permalink)
Mondak Industrialist Location: Southern California	Is Ed the android maid gal? - ah crap - that is Big -O lol! Well - I read your profile thingy and without knowing anything else, take your time with the whole job thing. Find something that you like and try not to get too stressed. You have an insanely bright future ahead....enjoy the ride. __________________ All truth passes through three stages: First it is ridiculed Second, it is violently opposed and Third, it is accepted as self-evident. ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER (1788-1860)

02-04-2004, 11:52 PM	#22 (permalink)
juanvaldes Banned Location: shittown, CA	Ed is a human, and not a maid. Just a computer hacker in the series. I suspect "ed" will be back around test time (a week or two) and finals.

02-05-2004, 04:45 AM	#24 (permalink)
bundy . Location: Tokyo	my only problem with iTunes is that they won't let me purchase any music from the site since i don't have a US address. i'm allowed to access the site and browse around... but it won't let me buy any music... __________________ Ohayo!!!

02-05-2004, 06:02 AM	#25 (permalink)
darkure Addict Location: Dodging the ice pick	Mondak, it is no problem. I was looking to sign up for one of the services but wasn't sure which one and I found that article linked from slashdot while I was researching. I was leaning toward the Musicmatch streaming service but then I realized that finacially no service would work for me. So I just went back to the CDs I already own. __________________ COYW