What is Digg?126 Comments
- chapium, on 10/12/2007, -0/+17Before someone begins a holy crusade against capped subscriptions, Here's a little math:
40 Downloads @ $9.99 / mo = $0.25 /song
65 Downloads @ $14.99 / mo = $0.23 /song
90 Downloads @ $20.00 / mo - $0.22 /song
I'd prefer this to pirating the songs since:
1. I do think piracy is wrong
2. Searches are less error prone
3. Paid service has a consistent bitrate
4. ID3 Tags are consistent and not full of garbage - fakerjohn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15I like itunes and gobbling up mp3s just fine but I've found the format leads me to collect only the "hit" tracks off of different bands and albums . . . I miss getting to know a band. I actually have no idea who most of the bands I listen to are anymore. And I miss the album art of records, cds, tapes. I miss bonus tracks. I even miss the mess of tapes and cds and crap. Nothing more awesome than finding a dinged up old tape under your car seat. Woe is me.
- evilhecubus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13http://www.emusic.com/browse/all.html
That should work. Peruse at your leisure - thewebguy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12go see a band play a small local venue. they will likely have a "donations" jar of sorts, or you can just buy one of their shirts. if they paid to get it printed, they are making 100% of the money, and 80% of the profit.
- tkemory, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12Nice,
I was not aware of eMusic but will definately be checking it out. iTunes proprietary crap gives me a headache. - paulmetzger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Best line in the story
The majors are terrified of piracy and so insist on strict DRM controls to safeguard their music. The indie labels that eMusic works with generally don't have that fear. "The indies have always viewed the world differently," says Pakman. "You know, the indies struggle for attention, for customers, so the notion of someone actually digging a track and e-mailing it to 10 of their best friends—doing self-promotion—that's music to the ears of the indie record labels. Whereas an RIAA member says, 'We've got to sue that guy.'" - davidro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7The selection may be crippled by major-label resistance, but it doesn't hurt nearly as much as you'd expect - so many great rock and pop acts released their best work on an indie label before getting signed to a major (and often sliding downhill). And the jazz greats of the 50s and 60s were so prolific that there are dozens of great CDs by the likes of Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, etc. that major labels can't even afford to care about.
- joeljkp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Only one of those gives any money back to the artist.
- freexe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7As a music fan I find allofmp3.com insulting to artists, you might as well download off souleek or bittorrent.
eMusic is a great site as it is a really great DRM free collection, and the artists get a cut of my money. - geekee, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8"I wish I could just donate $5 or $10 dollars right to the band and not have the machine take over 80% of the money and own the artists content and sometime own everything they do."
Where does this prevalent attitude come from? I don't say, I wish I could just donate money to the programmers of my favorite software, or I wish I could just pay the designers and assemblers of my favorite car. Acting like the artist is the only one in the music business that is doing anything productive, and the only one that deserves a paycheck, is naive and counterproductive. - halleyscomet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+55. It takes less time to actually find what you want.
6. You don't download something labeled as video of your favorite band's concert only to discover it's REALLY a three hour remix of the "Star Wars Kid" with a soundtrack of what appears to be the world's worst German electronica.
7. You don't have to wait three days for a download to complete, only to discover the last Seeder disconnected in the middle of the night, so you're 98% done with the download, and the missing bit appears to be the table of contents for the RAR file.
Let's be blunt, doing things legally is often more convenient, as jumping through various technical hoops is a royal PITA. It's really nice when a company makes doing things legally convenient and inexpensive. - 68kMac, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6You can preview everything without signing up. Try the links at the bottom of the page to bypass their obnoxious signup screens.
(a happy eMusic customer for almost 5 years now) - davidro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Seems like a lot of people were frustrated by the change from unlimited downloads to 90 for $20, or 40 for $10...understandable to a degree, but come on - nobody could have made money off of the old plan. I want my music cheap and unrestricted, but I understand somebody has to pay for the studio time, instruments and talent. It's like Skype's current model, giving people everything for practically nothing at all as a way to attract attention... though at least they are open about it only being planned "till the end of the year":
- evilhecubus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I have been a happy emusic customer for about half a year now. 10 bucks for 40 songs and lots of new great music to choose from. They even surprise me sometimes - for example, the White Stripes entire discography just became available on the site. Beauty, eh?
- WeThePeople, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Magnatune looks very interesting, they support open music with Creative Commons. The music industry is certainly going to change and the big labels will either wither away or face that change.
I certainly like Magnatune Mission statement:
We call it "try before you buy." It's the shareware model applied to music. Listen to 463 complete MP3 albums from musicians we work with (not 30 second snippets).
We let the music sell itself, because we think that's the best way to get you excited by it.
We pick the best submissions from independent musicians so you don't have to.
If you like what you hear, download an album for as little as $5 (you pick the price), or buy a real CD, or license our music for commercial use. And no copy protection (DRM), ever.
Artists keep half of every purchase. And unlike most record labels, they keep all the rights to their music.
No major label connections. - ericrous, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Finally, a chance to help get some recognition for some new groups on the scene--so they can sign a big record deal and then DRM all their songs. Yeah!!
- Barlo_Mung, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I've used emusic for years. It's a great way to find good music that you may have missed otherwise. They have a lot that you can't find on iTunes.
- trialofmiles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3robbclark said, "Everyone seems to ignore that whether an artists music is bought in a store, off of iTunes or off of allofmp3.com, the said artist gets next to nothing for their work... and I mean nothing."
Here's one example of how much Sony Music is paying its artists for songs sold at iTunes.
http://digg.com/music/Musicians_get_4.5_cents_for_songs_sold_on_iTunes
4.5 cents is not great but it's surely better than what allofmp3 is paying.
Can anyone provide any examples of how much allofmp3 pays artists? Sure, I've read how they pay royalities in Russia to ROMS, but if allofmp3 is only charging pennies per song, how much do you think the artist actually gets, if anything. - joeljkp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3They're exploiting people, so that means I should be able to, too!
- joephish, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@SmeRndmGy: It's an optional tool for batch-downloading. If you don't like it you can click a link to download each song individually.
- joeljkp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3They use lame 3.92 --alt-preset standard for all their encodings.
- SiB57, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3http://www.emusic.com/browse/all.html That should work. Peruse at your leisure Copied from evilhecubus only a few posts up. I too am a subscriber and have been for a little while. Not since the famed "unlimited" days, but since about the website relaunch. DAMN EDIT FEATURE IS REMOVING MY line breaks. Sorry.
- joephish, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I believe that the burden of proof lies with those who would claim all your music is illegal
- ArcusOfSV, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Wow!! Thanks for the browse link. Looks like they have some good stuff. Im going to sign up. bye bye DRM
- DrRobert, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I don't understand the statement, that there are only two places that sell for the ipod. I have an ipod. I buy downloads, but don't buy from itunes or emusic. What about Mindawn.com, magnatune.com, disclogic.com, studiodownloads.con, digitalsoundboard.net. There are many more. Plus all of these places sell lossless music so you are getting the full cd sound (or better in the case of digital soundboard) and not a compressed verison. Admittedly these stores all have a small selection, but I would rather have a thousand stores with lossess music and no drm than one store that has a big selection.
- chadu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It's cool to see they are still around... as an employee of theirs during the napster days we we're nearly beaten to death by piracy... good to see they were able to make it through the numerous buyouts.
- halleyscomet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It looks like they have the whole flipping Frank Zappa Catalog.
I wish I'd known about this a few weeks ago when I was trying to get my hands on a copy of "Broadway the Hard Way." It would have made life a whole lot easier. As it was I had to reserve it at the library and wait for it to arrive at my local branch. By the time it arrived, the party where I wanted to play one of the tracks at had passed.
It looks like deleting that "Free X songs from eMusic" icon from Winamp was a bad move on my part. - bkool, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2What I LOVE is that a lot of the music (especially electronica) is very high quality like 256kbps VBR. Some months I download a lot and others I don't but it doesn't bug me because I know that I'm helping independent labels and artists.
- joeljkp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@DrRobert:
I have a feeling they meant "two major places" or something of the sort.
The problem is that none of those places offer the music I want to listen to. eMusic does. - Toupee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I signed up in 2001 when they had a deal with They Might Be Giants where the band posted practically an EP-worth (or more, and sometimes whole live shows, too) of songs, as well as an autographed copy of the album that came out that year and a nice fleece sweatshirt, too!
That was back when downloads were unlimited, and I quit after that year. But recently I rediscovered the site and it's still an unbeatable deal - and their wide array of really cool artists makes it even more enjoyable than in the past. - raz1iss, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've been subscribed to Emusic for about a year & i dig it alot. I rarely go to Itunes for my music especially since a lot of the newer albums have passed the 9.99 mark and are now 12.99. If your into independent music than Emusic gives you a lot for your money. 90 downloads for 20 bucks is a no-brainer.
- architectzero, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3See, what they really need to do is: put a big button right in front of my face that says "browse catalog" (or something to that effect).
I mean, their service sounds intriguing but with a useless interface like they show people like the parent poster and myself are not going to bother filling in a form.
Show us the goods, up front, and we'll consider it. Otherwise it looks like you've got something to hide. - loneBoat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2No million-bajillion dollars fly out of mah bum when I click the link, no digg...
Heh-heh. Just kidding. Dugg! - joeyjojo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"I was not aware of eMusic"
More people need to be aware of eMusic. It's a great model for everyone. ;o) - joeyjojo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2cybershop...i think the point is that we should lump the russian sites into eMusic. It's just more ammo for the RIAA...look DRM free sites are just pirate sites! That kind of rhetoric.
I do want the russian sites to succeed...and it'd be great if they started dealing directly with artists. But, until then, I think it's wise to put eMusic on it's own pedestal as an example of DRM-free, fully legal, electronic music buying. - steger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've found great songs and albums off of emusic and i will continue to use it. The price is good and i can download the songs i've purchased for as many times as i like.
- misfit410, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Emusic is awesome, good ole standard MP3 format... the price is awesome.. if they would just get the selection up to speed.
- mrzebra, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Indeed, great service: price, no DRM and the hard-to-find-elsewhere artists got me using it.
- ConceptJunkie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2eMusic keeps track of everything you've bought.
- leoCT, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You can even get 25 songs for free. You do have to sign up though.
- bennyprofane, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I used eMusic for years, but ultimately bailed for two reasons:
1. Per track pricing is great for some types of music with long track lengths (jazz, classical, experimental/ noise), but really sucks for many others (hip-hop, punk, anything by Guided by Voices). I'd love to see eMusic take a page from allofM3.com and charge by the MB so that all genres get a fair shake.
2. Related to that, I'd also like to see some higher bit-rates available. I don't need lossless, but some music really suffers under sub 200 vbr. Again, this could be solved by a file size related subscription rather than a track based one.
The music selection might turn off some folks, and I've had more than a few glitchy tracks, but ultimately I liked having a legal, DRM free alternative. I just spend too much on vinyl to justify keeping up my subscription. - ElSimo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3First I've heard of this site, but Emusic seems like a breath of fresh in a stagnant, muddy industry of DRMed music. Not just for their non-DRM position, but the price isn't too shabby either. But for the major bands, Allofmp3.com is still where its at.
- joeljkp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@cybershoplifter:
Judging by your name, this is probably unnecessary, but napster.com lets you preview songs in their entirity.
Oh, and eMusic has another feature allofmp3 lacks: it pays the artists. - halleyscomet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You might want to take a look at their current catalog. One point of the article is that they've added a lot of content recently.
I'd also suggest you look at music other than what's on your local Clearchannel owned affiliate station. The "major" labels only sign acts that they think will have the broadest appeal. In other words, they deliberately sign acts to meet the lowest common denominator.
Now, if you LIKE "These guys sound just like the other five top rock bands of the moment" music, then by all means keep listening to it.
If you want some variety in your rock, then take a look outside of the major labels.
By the way, your examples are BS. There's no Enya or Cary Simon on eMusic.com - ConceptJunkie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The selection won't get up to speed in a huge way because RIAA members won't do business with eMusic. However, for people whose music tastes are broader than the bilge that ClearChannel spews, or those dozen "classic rock" songs that we've heard a billion times, eMusic provides a wealth of interesting choices in all genres of music.
But remember, no DRM, substantially cheaper tunes (as low as about 30 cents a track, regardless length), and I wouldn't be surprised if the artists get as much, or a reasonable chunk of, what they get from other retail outlets, although I don't know that for a fact. I'd be happy to pay more if the money went straight to the artists, too.
I've purchased about 60 albums from them and a couple dozen random songs, and have no problems using up my 90 tracks a month, which is the $19.99/month plan. 95% of the time the MP3 quality is superb... at least 192kbps and usually higher, usually variable bitrate too. To be honest, there a couple... (literally 2 or 3) albums where I found the quality to be sub-par, but overall the sound is excellent... and I'm pretty picky about that stuff.
I'm a hugely satisfied customer. - jals, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Just adding another thumbs up for eMusic here. I'd download more but a lot of the stuff I know I want to buy on cd anyway, but as a fan of stuff other than the mainstream it's great, they have some fantastic stuff.
The region limitation is quite annoying, though at least now they don't show you the albums you can't download to avoid those "Yes!.... Damn!" moments when you realise you can't download some gem you've found cos you're in the UK.
Definitely worth the trial if nothing else. - EliW, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I would be surprised if AllOfMp3.com isn't the #2 seller
At least in quantity. They probably aren't in money, given how little they charge. - joeljkp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I use EMusicJ: http://www.kallisti.net.nz/EMusicJ/HomePage
- alceria, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I signed up for this last month because there was a decent selection of indie music and I thought it would help with finding music to play on my indie podcast. But I've been a bit dissapointed by the selection. At times I feel like I've subscribed to the all Belle and Sebastian network. It also irritates me that they will name a major label artist like Tori Amos in the sidebar, like they have her music, and link to one track on a electronica album that remixed one of her songs. I'm not really into most mainstream bands because I gave up on radio about ten years ago, but I fear that if they don't broaden their catalog I will have downloaded everything they offer that I like within three months. I also find the downloader and the fact that to preview songs you have to open up windows media player tedious as hell.
- frontbrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1http://www.audiolunchbox.com (digg isn't linking this right) is another non-DRM option. I would have been more likely to sign up for eMusic if I could have browsed their catalog before signing up. I am not real happy about how a lot of music costs more than one point per song on audiolunchbox though. It is $10/month for 40 points/month use them or lose them. Maybe I will cancel audiolunchbox after this month and switch over to give emusic a try.
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