Universal’s ‘classic’ downloads
p2pnet.net News:- Talk about closing the gate after the horse has gone, France’s Vivendi Universal, a member of the Big 4 Organized Music cartel, has figured out something the p2p community has known since the year dot: the Net is a great place to find Golden Oldies of all persuasions.
In fact, it’s one of the main reasons the p2p networks are thriving while the music industry has to invent statistics to make it look as though there’s also an online corporate market.
Getz & Gilberto and Yo-Yo Ma’s Cello Suites are just two examples of mp3s sets we have on our box, and we could list a lot more.
“One of the reasons the free (in the sense of unfettered) sites and networks are the mainstays in the real world of online music, as opposed to the fake one the labels are trying to promote, is: they offer the full range of buyer-donated music that’d otherwise be kept locked up tight in corporate catalogues,” p2pnet posted recently,
So what do you do when you’re one of the Big 4 when that finally sinks in, apart from sue your customers, that is? You pretend it’s a brand new idea and try to cash in on it.
Accordingly, Vivendi has come out with a download store devoted to classical and jazz, “hoping to tap into a booming market for digital sales and promising to unlock a treasure trove of thousands of recordings that have sat in the vaults for decades,” says The Guardian.
All the files will, of course, be poisoned with a DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) consumer control applications,
And what booming market? Big Music claims that it exists are as phony as their claims that they care about their customers.
“The new site will offer all of Universal’s classical and jazz releases, including classic imprints such as Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, Verve and Impulse, running to 125,000 tracks taken from nearly 8,000 CDs,” says the story.
Only 125,000? That’s paltry.
“Clare Nash, who heads the classics and jazz unit’s new media business, said the company decided to enter the market after industry research showed digital stores were not providing high enough quality download files and suitable search engines,” says Reuters.
Research showed? It’s been as plain as the noses on their corporate faces since 2003 when Vivendi and the other lesser members of the Big 4 gang, Warner Music (US), EMI (Britain), and Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), started trying to sue their customers into buying ‘product’ as the “not high enough quality” downloads are known.
Will Vivendi now also apply the other part of the equation, that’s to say offer the “treasure trove” at fair and reasonable proices instead of the $1 rip-off which is the current corporate standard?
Meanwhile, that just leaves all the other categories the p2p community has made available for free for other people to share, such as blues greats, folks, country, and so on.
"Interesting," posts Julian Bond below.
“The Very Best Of Astrud Gilberto classicsandjazz £7.90 ($15.405) WMA 320Kb DRM; AllOfMp3.com $5.19 WMA9 320Kb no-DRM; AllOfMp3.com $3.41 MP3 192K VBR no-DRM.
“Here’s the license
Unless stated otherwise you will receive three licences per year for every track you purchase. This allows you to move your music onto a new PC or use the music on a re-installed PC. Each licence will allow you to burn the track to CD 10 times and transfer the track 25 times to a compatible portable player. Tracks can be played an unlimited number of times on your PC.
“So they’re getting there and have the right idea. They just need to drop the price, get rid of the DRM, offer alternate encodings and digitise their whole back catalogue.”
Don’t bother to stay tuned. You already know what’s going to happen.
Also See:
p2pnet posted – Cashing in on Golden Oldies, December 29, 2006
The Guardian – Download store taps classical and jazz boom, January 11, 2007
Reuters – Universal pursues digital demand via classics site, January 10, 2007
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January 11th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Interesting.
The Very Best Of Astrud Gilberto
classicsandjazz £7.90 ($15.405) WMA 320Kb DRM
AllOfMp3.com $5.19 WMA9 320Kb no-DRM
AllOfMp3.com $3.41 MP3 192K VBR no-DRM
Here’s the license
Unless stated otherwise you will receive three licences per year for every track you purchase. This allows you to move your music onto a new PC or use the music on a re-installed PC. Each licence will allow you to burn the track to CD 10 times and transfer the track 25 times to a compatible portable player. Tracks can be played an unlimited number of times on your PC.
So they’re getting there and have the right idea. They just need to drop the price, get rid of the DRM, offer alternate encodings and digitise their whole back catalogue.
January 11th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
ya right!
That will be another major flop!
Not only there is this DRM crap but why do they thing the Classical listener use computer or even MP3?
Classical is very demanding on the equipment and classical listener such as me demand an high level of sound quality. Mp3 might be ok for britney slut stuff but for classical it does not cut it!
Try to play an MP3 file on a full size stereo!
Yes there are the bass and medium and bass but every thing is muddy! With mp3 we lose the transition!
Acually,although way better than MP3, CD does not totally cut it compare to alnalog recording because the sound is kind of harsh. The bit sampling resolution of CDs is too low.
The advantage of CD is lower background noise and higher dynamic but it sound kind of harsh!
Beside Vivendique are the main instigator of the law suits against the people So Vivendi this is my message you are a pack of parasites and I will never I mean never buy anything from you again! Never!
Once we are done with you wer will dance on your ruin!
January 12th, 2007 at 3:41 am
Why would anyone want to buy from Universal’s DRM-ridden tracks when eMusic has been specializing in this music category for years? Not only that, there’s no DRM in any of their music yet they still sell on a subscription basis. How does Universal expect to compete with the #2 digital music store on the Internet?
On a related note, I’m willing to bet that a lot of the music in this category in either store was made before 1928, and therefore is already in the public domain and legal to share.