eMusic: first impressions
p2pnet.net Opinion:- As a music fan and someone who believes in his right to make his own software choices on hardware he owns, I decided to try out eMusic. This music service is the second most popular online music store, with Apple’s iTunes being the top. But unlike Apples iTunes, music purchased through eMusic is made available in vendor-neutral file formats: Apple’s iTunes are encrypted tomake them only interoperable only with hardware/software combinations approved by Apple.
Note: Apple claims that their FairPlay system is used to stop people from copyright infringement, but basic cryptographic theory documents show this isn’t possible. The intended recipient of the files and the alleged “attacker” are one and the same person and thus, the encrypted files and the decryption keys are both available to them.
The site has a 14 day trial which gives you 25 free downloads. I signed up for the “eMusic Basic” – 40 Song Downloads per month for $9.99 per month. If I find I’m a more heavy user, I can move to 90 songs per month for $19.99.
But the downloads don’t roll over, so if I don’t use my 40 downloads in a given month they don’t accumulate in the next month.
One of the complaints I’ve heard about eMusic is they include the independents but not the major labels. I consider this a feature since I don’t want to financially support people who are lobbying to take my technology property rights away (see the petition for Information Technology property rights), or who sue their customers rather than work to make money from a missed market opportunity.
I fully support the policy views of the Canadian Music Creators Coalition who oppose DRM and suing music fans, and support stable government funding for Canadian creators.
My first attempt to download a song was from the All New Revue – Live at the Glenn Gould Studio album from the Barenaked Ladies. I’ve always been a fan of their music, and have been to a few concerts. The fact Steven Page has been so involved in CMCC has made financial support of the band that much easier as well.
When I downloaded a song, I ended up with a file with an ‘.emp’ file extension. Looking this up on the site told me that this is a file format used by their “eMusic Download Manager”. I looked on the site and couldn’t find documentation on how to download music without this download manager.
Since one of the motivations of using eMusic over other music services was to protect my choice in software, it seemed to defeat the purpose if the only way to download music was to install a specific piece of proprietary software.
I asked in their help system. The first reply I got was again to send me to the download section for the “eMusic Download Manager”. I sent a follow-up message asking for them to confirm that the only way to download music was to use this software. I then received instructions on how to set up my account.
To disable the eMusic Download Manager:
1. Log in to your eMusic account and click on the “Account” link in the upper right of the eMusic homepage.
2. Under Download Options, click on the link entitled “Change Download Manager”.
3. Click the button to “Disable the eMusic Download Manager” (if the button says “Enable eMusic Download Manager”, then you have already disabled it).
When I did this I could then go back to the album and when I tried to download I received a nicely titled “.mp3″ file (MPEG 1.0 layer III, 128 kbit/s, 44100 Hz joint-stereo) rather than a “.emp” file.
I believe it’s an oversight for eMusic to not have clearly documented this as part of their help files. Had I not thought to check the Download Manager by email, I would have just quietly unsubscribed and revoked my public support of eMusic.
I’ve since downloaded that entire album, and will look for other related songs. As much as I am a fan of Barenaked Ladies, now I’ll have 40 additional songs being added to my music collection per month, I’ll be expanding my listening.
I think I’m going to look up some of the other musicians part of the CMCC and see if I like their music.
Now things are working my only disappointment is the music isn’t offered in a better quality format.
MPEG 1.0 layer III is a lossy audio compression format. I’ve been told by audio specialists that the new AAC format that’s also the Motion Picture Expert Group (See: MPEG Audio) is of better quality.
The ideal is if the audio isn’t compressed at all by using a format such as FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) which would offer the same quality digital audio as used on a standard CD.
Russell McOrmond – p2pnet contributing editor
[McOrmond is an independent author (software and non-software) who uses modern business models and licensing (Free/Libre and Open Source Software, Creative Commons). He's also the CLUE policy coordinator.]
p2pnet newsfeeds for your site.
rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss
Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
October 29th, 2006 at 10:20 am
First impressions? A bit late. Man eMusic is around for more than 8 years!
Themp3’s are high quality lame encoded with the alt preset standard switch. You cannot hear the diffence between the original cd and the mp3.
Never trust audiophiles they listen to audio. I prefer listening to music.
Do more resarch before you write an article.
October 29th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
I’m a Free/Libre and Open Source person. Releasing an article with what I know at the moment is part of my ongoing research.
October 29th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
there are lots of people out there – and i’m one – who have heard about it but never tried it. thanks russell.
October 29th, 2006 at 7:18 pm
Russell, since you admit being a BnL fan; have you already heard of their Remix project where you can buy original studio tracks and remix for your self and reupload your creation for the public to hear?
http://stems.barenakedladies.com/
–
kdsde
October 31st, 2006 at 3:10 pm
This review in no way gives you a true picture of what the average user will conclude after using eMusic, for a short time.
You state that eMusic is the second most popular download service after Apple’s iTunes. I’m amazed by that.
Here are my findings after using it. Firstly, I have used the following services before using eMusic, iTunes, HMV, Virgin and Napster. I am UK based so I use the UK version of those services.
I used eMusic simply because I took up the offer of 50 free tunes. BUT, I struggled to find 50 tunes ! Not because I don’t have wide tastes. I have a massive music collection and work in radio.
Forget the claims of numbers of songs available for download. There are massive holes in their coverage of mainstream artists. I would say they offer about 15% of the coverage of the other major players.
They are very much a second or third division player in the market. Read the user reviews of albums, you’ll find countless unhappy customers, who had downloaded awful re-recordings of Greatest Hits etc by some third generation version of the band in question.
So, in summary, the choice of songs from the cores artists is a fraction of the other alternatives, there are lots of non-original version of songs and thousands and thousands of totally obscure tracks. A lot of people consider me an expert on pop/rock from the 60’s to today. So, I feel I am able to comment fairly on what’s obscure and what’s not.
I say forget eMusic, or better still, try it for free with the free offer from WinAmp. But, please don’t subscribe till you’ve tried the others.
Mark
March 13th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Thanks for this. I found your page while trying to figure out how to download my free trial music in MP3 format and it worked.
Cheers!