Comments on: SanDisk SlotMusic SneakerDisk

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:42:18 +0000

I read that one of the big sell points is the fact that most cell phones have a MicroSD slot, so people can supposedly just pop them in the phones. Only problem is with every phone I have used with a MicroSD slot the phone must format the chip…. which would delete the music that is on it. Yep what a great sell point. Maybe some of the more high end phones that run Windows Mobile can do it without formatting the card. Oh and supposedly the music will be DRM free. Wait the music I get from Amazon is already like that.

By: Mostly Harmless

Mostly Harmless — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:13:40 +0000

I have been using SD cards for music for years. My Sansa mp3 player has an SD slot. This is like calling a bucket an innovative new way to carry water.

By: Henry Ermich

Henry Ermich — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 03:34:24 +0000

Anybody remember “Hit clips?”
If I recall correctly, it consisted of a really crappy “player” into which you could load these tiny little chip-lookin’ things, and play back single songs. Maybe albums, I dunno. Upshot was that it was shitty, and almost nobody remembers it anymore.

This looks like an attempt to re-try that concept without having to bother with inventing their own proprietary hardware.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:11:06 +0000

i smell drm ladin music in this product.
what Sandisk should do is sell these cards empty and allow people to fill them with what ever they want via a computer/loading machine beside them. and also make them mp3’s with no drm…
then I would be game with it but for now I guess p2p and ripping friends cd’s is for me

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:36:28 +0000

Yet another hairbrained scheme where the consumer is expected to fork over the money for new hardware to try it out. Certain HP computers come with memory stick readers, though I am not sure they would be the same for this item.

Most won’t have the readers in their computer so they will have to buy the readers and then install them or have them installed before they can even spend money on the songs. How crazy is that? The cd/dvd/digital work well enough for most folks. I don’t see many changing on this.

A one gig capacity sounds ok, but can you trust these labels not to use some of that for spyware or other nastiness with what is extra? They seem only to fear discovery. That’s another reason I would not go this route. Sony has already showed us what they will do and I want no part of such.

By: Henry Emrich

Henry Emrich — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:21:42 +0000

This is probably the stupidest thing they’ve come up with in a long while.

From what I can tell, the RIAA/MPAA lobbybots are schizoid: on the one hand, their marketing strategy seems to be totally wedded to the notion that “physical media == content” — such that the CD “is” the album you bought.

But when it comes to copyright, the situation is different: you may ‘own” the physical media, but, as far as copyright goes, THEY still claim to ‘own’ the content — digital or analog doesn’t matter to them. Moreover, according to them/their apologists, THEIR “rights” to the content trump your piddling permissions in regard to the physical media — which is why they’ve been trying to gut the “first-sale” doctrine for years.

This won’t work — it’s just another attempt to bind “content” to a particular physical medium, an idea which — thanks to the inclusion of CD-ripping capability even in Windows media player for years, strikes most people as completely bogus.

Not to mention that they’ll probably attempt to DRM the files/booby-trap the media in some way, which tends to piss off their users.