What is Digg?Sponsored by Bing
When Should I Book My Flight Home for Christmas? view!
bing.com - Bing predicts if your fare is likely to fall by $50 or more within 7 days. Shockingly accurate.
140 Comments
- robbclark, on 10/12/2007, -1/+74They need to do something about audio quality as well before I, or assume, many people will buy. But no DRM is a step in the right direction.
- revenge7, on 10/12/2007, -2/+71iTunes is the No. 1 online music retailer.
eMusic is the No. 2 online music retailer. - DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -10/+43When I say it's in the wrong topic, I mean this article is not about Apple. Tech Industry News would be more appropriate. Not that anyone cares.
- ldavid, on 10/12/2007, -8/+38Too true. 128 kbps? Anyone who would want to pay for that sort of quality is nuts. They may have increased the bit rate by now...(I hope)...but still, people should be able to download the song at 320kbps.
- imightbewrong, on 10/12/2007, -2/+27most consumers have no knowledge of DRM at all
- randovaro, on 10/12/2007, -7/+29I would seriously pay a bit more for lossless, preferably FLAC.
- BradleyBo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+24I buy from eMusic because I want DRM-free music. I'd like to buy everyone at eMusic a beer.
- KnightMareInc, on 10/12/2007, -22/+42128 is fine for most people and most music.
- mejor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20true, 192 is necessary in my opinion, makes the music sound much better. Though I do know a lot of people who could care less about the quality. Awesome step though!
- randovaro, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19"His (David Pakman, CEO of eMusic) company is the only legitimate digital music service selling unrestricted songs, in the MP3 format. Its songs work with any music player, including the iPod."
Ummm.... Magnatune anyone? http://www.magnatune.com/ - lockfist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+17I have been using emusic for two months now and I no longer even think about itunes. The reason has a lot less to do with DRM and everything to do with the PRICE. At .33 a pop, you can take a lot of risks in what you download.
- Pootle4rthur, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17I used to pay for stuff from allofmp3, because it was cheap enough and downloaded quickly
people don't mind paying as long as their not being asked to pay an unreasonable amount - cozmicone37, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15I don't buy music online becuase of DRM.
- DyDx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15True, but I'm sure many have found out the hard way when they get a new mp3 player and all of a sudden their iTunes music doesn't work on it. This may not happen often, though, as iPod users may usually stay as iPod users. (no idea on any statistics)
- stalefries, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15Yes, chingmiester, we all know about piracy.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18supermanred...of coruse, if you took the SAME EXACT file and told you it was from the Zune store, you would say "Wow! That compression is HORRIBLE!"
- ShrimpCrackers, on 10/12/2007, -6/+20@truthelixirx
If you can't hear the difference between CD Quality and AAC its either because your hearing is half gone or you're using crappy equipment. Nothing personal, but I don't really see that many death metal people lugging reference Grado's (not the cheap SR60's) with at least a ChuMoy amp.
Its kind of like people who have never driven a sports car. They may not see the appeal until they get into the seat. - xM55, on 10/02/2009, -5/+19Let's not blow things out of proportion here...
1. The average person (I mean totally average) most likely isn't even aware of what DRM is. A lack of it isn't going to affect these average persons.
2. DRM provides restrictions, but the iPod already controls some 70+% of the mp3 player market, so these users (the ones that will ultimately purchase music) won't affect any statistics, essentially.
3. Those who purchase CDs will purchase CDs, and that's really the way it is.
So, in the end, a lack of DRM will pick up some new iTunes Store music buyers, but nothing is going to "explode." - MadEnvoy, on 10/12/2007, -5/+19@PROLIFElovegod
Might be because we are putting you in our block list. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13"EMI wouldn't have to worry about pirates, because anyone who wants to pirate music is already doing it. The paying customer is a different breed."
James McQuivey hit is right on the head - scabbers, on 10/12/2007, -5/+16128 is probably ok nowadays, but back when people made 112 kbps encodes using the demo version of bladenc or whatever, it definitely wasn't.
- gharding, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13I don't give a flying crap about lossless. I'm listening to music on the subway, at parties, or quietly at night. Why would i need 80mb lossless files for that? Ask the majority of people if they want lossless and they'll probably say "what?". You're the minority.. they don't cater to you.
Also, DRM is certainly losing me as a customer. I was going to buy some music last night from iTMS but my account is tied to an email address I can no longer access (I figured if I changed it, I'd lose all my (few) currently DRM'd songs) and I have no idea what credit card was in the system. It was just easier to bittorrent the album I wanted. - metalhead3767, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14128 kbs sounds like crap. Am I one of the few that can tell the difference?
- ohnocommies, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Thus it is shown, that when people are allowed to OWN the things they pay for, they will buy them.
- burke, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Apparently Magnatune isn't legitimate or something... He should be careful about his use of such strong words as 'only'.
- TruthElixirX, on 10/12/2007, -16/+24I listen to lots of death metal and metalcore (Yes, I'm aware that most of you think it is utter crap. Don't care. :)), guess what? I own "high quality" CD rips of those songs and iTunes to see if I can tell the difference, there isn't any. Most music doesn't really require super high encoding. Orchestra type music probably does, and even some rock, country, jazz, pop, and blues; but the majority doesn't. AC/DC, Norma Jean, Morbid Angel, and Pungent Stench all sound the same at 320 kbps and 128 kbps.
- matt0ne, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8This is the key quote: "EMI wouldn't have to worry about pirates, because anyone who wants to pirate music is already doing it. The paying customer is a different breed."
- thebrokenlight, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9@DaffyDuck
Actually, its been my experience that with 128kbps, it actually sounds better with worse sounding headphones. Clearer sounding buds just make the ***** more apparent. - allthewhile, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12emusic.com is only #2 because they have an insanely obtrusive bundling scheme. Every time I get a new computer I have to spend 10 minutes trying to delete emusic data on my computer.
- aeiou, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7and what about http://www.audiolunchbox.com ?
- burke, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Personally, I'm fine with anything 128 to 192, and couldn't really care less where it falls within that range. I think it's silly to have anything higher than 192, unless you've paid more than $1500 for your speakers, at which point, you may in fact notice a difference. I don't, as my speakers were $30 and my headphones came free with my shuffle.
- pashdown, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Not only is the DRM-free Bleep (http://bleep.com) legitimate, its the only service with good music!
- gravis86, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10http://www.allofmp3.com Cheap, you can choose your quality, unrestricted, and you can fund communism at the same time!!
/sarcasm
Although it is cheap, unrestricted, and there are lots of formats to choose from :) - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5when i found out beatport has non DRM music i signed up right away. never thought i would buy music online. i think non DRM music would sell is true.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@masna
"1. The average person (I mean totally average) most likely isn't even aware of what DRM is. A lack of it isn't going to affect these average persons.
2. DRM provides restrictions, but the iPod already controls some 70+% of the mp3 player market, so these users (the ones that will ultimately purchase music) won't affect any statistics, essentially."
I agree with you up to a point, while yes the iPod makes up a relatively large amount of the mp3 player market I dont agree with you that the average consumer is that dumbfounded when it comes to DRM espcially when they are buying another iPod and wonder why they cant even put their music on that new player, give the normal consumer more credit - Pootle4rthur, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4if they priced all music over 5 years old near the sort of prices done by allofmp3 they'd be laughing
it costs next to nothing to store on a server and costs them nothing in marketing and promotion costs, and when music is cheap enough that you can afford not to like it, it becomes an awful lot more tempting to pay to download to a much greater variety of things
There are old and not very famous bands I love to pieces purely because I found their stuff on the internet, I'd be delighted if I could buy their whole back catalogues for a reasonable - superkendall, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I subscribe to eMusic - honestly, some months I forget to even download any music. But I don't really care because I really like supporting the idea of music sold in open formats.
If everyone subscribed to eMusic, the studios might start to take the hint. Or artists would all move to eMusic; I really don't care which happens first. - KazuyaDarklight, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Using lossy compression on a lossy, or formerly lossy, file DOES decrease quality. The encoder doesn't magically recognize that it was compressed before. All it sees is data and it runs it through the system decreasing the quality. The size is dropped because data is stripped out, thats the whole idea, so you strip out data once, burn it to a disc where at best some essentially pointless filler data gets added as part of the conversion the the lossless format and then you save it to lossy again and more data, some filler and some NOT, gets stripped out, its the same thing as happens with jpgs. Every time you open a jpg for editing and then resave it, it gets recompressed and the quality goes down, thats why you keep pics in a lossless format until you finished working with them, THEN save them to jpg/gif/what have you.
- inkswamp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Why does it take big business to figure out what has been bleeding obvious to the rest of us for ages?
BTW, count me in as a new online customer if DRM goes away. I own an iPod but I haven't bought any of the music on it from iTunes or any other online store that uses DRM. If DRM were removed, I'd buy everything online. CDs are dead, and I'd rather do all of my music buying online but if I can't use the music files however I want, I'm not interested. I know many others who feel the same. This is a no-brainer (but then again, the RIAA has shown itself to be braindead so I guess it's no surprise we're still waiting on them to figure it out.) - phytonix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4128 kps and so what? A cheap speaker playing 320 kps is worse than a good speaker with 128 kps.
- frikk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Lossless is important for a couple of reasons.
1. You can encode lossless to any file format you want, any amount of times, without quality loss (aside from encoding). That means you can encode to OGG, AAC, 320 MP3, 96 MP3, whatever you want. That lossless file will be just as valid in 15 years when mp3 players may or may not work the same as they do today.
2. People who use digital music (I am a DJ - I would never spin out with anything less than 320 or lossless) professionally care. You'll never get as good as vinyl, but it helps to get close.
3. If I am paying a premium for a song, I want to feel like I am getting great quality. A CD gives me that ability, a lossy MP3 does not.
Some sites (http://traxsource.com) offer both 192 and 320 MP3, but at different prices. http://beatport.com does lossless as well for the same price as a 320 MP3. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Buying music online is inferior to buying CD's because for a similar or the same price as the iTunes store, one can get an actual CD, liner notes, no DRM, and higher quality audio. The drawback is convenience: you have to go out to a store, worry about availability, and rip the disk to your computer to put it on an mp3 device.
An illustration: I have a 3rd gen iPod and the battery is not dead so I use it. It still serves my needs. But, because of DRM, I can't put music i bought from the iTunes store onto my mp3 player. My iPod is too old to install the necessary software to get through the DRM. So, I had to burn my songs to disk, rip them, and then name them again. It's little problems like this that make me feel like I don't "own" the music I paid for the same way I own my CD's.
For now, I steal things because I tried to buy them through the iTunes store and the store failed me. I've also had a subscription to emusic. I had a Wolf Parade song stuck in my head, and tried to find it on emusic, they didn't have it. That's their only big weakness: selection. Good music on there, and tons of it, but you can't say I want a "so and so" song, and find it there. It's a lottery.
If iTunes undid the DRM and provided lossless music, there would be no contest. - noerrorsfound, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Topher06:
And get an even worse-sounding file? No thanks. - nephilimx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3So without DRM, the average person who could give a crap less about buying music or even knowing what DRM is, would instantly want to buy mp3's and scene would explode? More like life would go on and itunes would continue its monopoly on mainstream music, and independent labels with online stores without DRM would continue with crap sales...
- Nat5an, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3And http://www.beatport.com/ (assuming you can navigate the flash-tastic interface). It's all electronic music, all in high-bitrate mp3 format.
- catalysis, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8I wish more people paid attention to sound quality so they would start coming out with music DVDs and better compressed files. The truth is that most people just listen to music as background noise while they do things and don't actually just sit down and listen.
Listening to 128kbps music with earbuds is like watching Lord of the Rings on a 12'' black and white TV. - BlackAdderIII, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I'm sorry, is there some effective anti-piracy aspect to DRM I haven't heard about? Is there a lack of "piracy" right now?
Lay off that guano you're smoking. :-D
I don't know if this is news to you, but DRM hasn't removed the ability to copy anything. People who don't pay for their content just live in a DRM-free world. - superkendall, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That is exactly right, and I don't understand why this is such a hard point to get. With everyone stealing music already anyway what do they have to loose in getting ANY money from sales instead of ZERO? It doesn't seem hard to make more than zero. If you open up the music you sell it's not like it gets "more stolen".
- mvander115, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I have not bought music from the store in years, all of my music I have bought has been from online services. It would be nice not to have to crack the DRM on all the files I download, I have to crack them seeing as I beta test a lot and reinstall my PC 3 or 4 times a month. If the DRM was not there I would not have to take this extra step. Unfortunately not everyone does not know how to do this and are confused when they cannot put the song they just purchased on there MP3 player. So they then move on to a DRM free source so they can use it on there MP3 player.....Yeah we all know what that means to move to a "DRM Free" source. I could easily see a 15 -20% increase in sales, like the article says, you are not going to stop the people who want to pirate, what you will do is get the people who want to buy the music and not have to deal with licensing issues trying to move the music from there PC to there MP3 player / Laptop / portable gaming device.
- SystmBetatester, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2i dont think they woudl explode... no drm just means you dont have to rebuy the music... and anyone who cares about drm probably pirates it anyway... so i dont know why anyone cares...
-
Show 51 - 100 of 140 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is