p2pnet - rss feed: MusicGiants, Big Four deal
p2p news / p2pnet:-MusicGiants, offering 1,100 kbps downloads for not a lot more than the Big Four record label cartel is trying to flog its seriously over-priced and lossy (128 - 192 kbps) mp3s, has reached a licensing deal with the cartel.
Always willing to try to butter their bread on both sides as well as around the edges, EMI Group, Sony BMG, Vivendi Universal and Warner Music Group are selling ‘product’ to MusicGiants for commercial download, says Reuters.
The tracks will be priced at $1.29 each, as opposed to the industry norm of $1, which is kinda interesting given that the labels desperately want to up their wholesale prices from their existing 60 to 85 cent levels.
They are of course, also trying to sue people into buying their junk.
And there are two other Buts; and they’re both big ones.
Firstly, the files are available only under Monopolosoft Windows Media Audio.
Secondly, “In addition to providing superior playback quality, the software provides digital copyright management, it [MusicGiants] said,” according to Reuters.
“Any device running Windows XP or Windows Media Player can play the downloaded files. Customers must first register online, get the software via download or CD-ROM, and open an account by paying a $50 annual fee. Incline Village, Nevada-based MusicGiants then credits new customers $50 each for music purchases.”
Think of all those lovely, free personal details such as CC numbers, addresses, music selections, and so on, going into all those corporate data bases.
Don’t trouble to stay tuned.
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win
- Mohandas Gandhi
See:-
IDG News Service - Instant Concert CDs Combat Piracy, September 27, 2005
sue people - RIAA lies and disinformation, September 27, 2005
September 28th, 2005 at 9:13 pm
People are downloading via peer to peer rather than buying all the Winblows Media junk with DRM. I do not see where it would hurt the cartels to offer mp3 downloads for 25 to 35 cents each. Rather than getting the same song from a fellow peer at no cost, customers would be giving the cartels some money for what they downloaded. 25 to 35 cents for a song sounds reasonable to me, and it would make the cartels a good chunk of change. I’m sure most people would be willing to pay that for a song.
If the cartels offered mp3 downloads for 25 to 35 cents a song, stopped suing their customers, and paid back the victims they successfully extorted, I would be willing to start doing business with them again. However, most of the music I would buy would be older stuff. The new stuff is not worth a darn. But since the cartels prefer to stick to extortion and overpriced, crappy downloads, they have lost me as a customer.
September 28th, 2005 at 9:58 pm
I would never buy anything from iTunes for four reasons.
1) Own a Rio Karma, which does not play DRM AAC files.
2) Tracks are not gapless as far as I know (a big deal when buying an entire album).
3) AAC quality is way too low (only lossless is truly “CD quality”).
4) I have a thing against DRM in general.
These reasons apply to pretty much any similar service that provides lossy tracks. However, this service, when it first launched, piqued my curiosity quite a bit. The big draw for me is that the tracks are in a lossless format, which happens to be the only thing I will accept in return for my hard earned cash (which is why I try to buy used CD’s whenever I can). Still DRM’s though, and the catalog looked pretty wimpy at the time, so I passed on it. But now that they’ve made a deal with the big four I’m starting to take interest again, not that I want to really support the big four, but I would like the conveniance. With a good sound card, DRM can always be stripped the old fashioned way, and with a million times less of a loss to the quality than you get with the compressed lossy formats, such as AAC, lossy WMA, and MP3. Then I could archive it to FLAC, Wavpack, Monkey’s Audio, etc, with pretty much near zero quality loss, and be able to do what ever I want with it forever (such as transcode it to Vorbis for use on my Rio Karma). That’s worth $1.29 US if you ask me. I think I’m going to sign up just to test it out. There are so many tracks I want too. If all works out as planned, this will keep me broke for a year at least.
September 28th, 2005 at 11:54 pm
The service is only available to US residents at the moment. Oh well, at least their FAQ says they plan on expanding to other countires in the future. That sucks though, the wife and I were finding all sorts of stuff on their list we would love to download. So much for going “legit”. Their loss I guess. We’ll just have to continue on with buying used CD’s, and/or downloading from several sources I know of that provide audio files in a lossless format.
September 29th, 2005 at 12:25 am
That’s so they can charge different prices in different places….
September 29th, 2005 at 4:29 am
All this talk of windows drm. I wonder if Vista/longhorn will use the same drm setup? Or is everyone using a currently compatible device or service going to be unpleasantly surprised once vista hits the shelves?
September 29th, 2005 at 5:49 pm
Um…did I read this right? $50 annual fee…so I can have the privilege of buying music from you? Do they credit the $50 back each year and, if so, why the hell bother with this crap?
According to Stereophile (http://www.stereophile.com/news/051605musicgiants/) the $50 annual fee is waived if you purchase $250 of music (works out to ~194 purchases at $1.29) a year. Yeah…good luck with that.
September 29th, 2005 at 10:54 pm
Well, as long as the pricing is fair and the selection is large enough that I can buy everything I want, I’ll certainly be willing to overlook the fact that it’s loaded with DRM. Besides, like was mentioned previously, it’s not all that hard to copy purchased music to a different lossless format sans DRM which, despite resulting in what is technically a second generation copy, is still far better than a lossy file, in any format, at any bitrate. Maybe if we’re lucky some smart fellow may come up with a way to simply strip the DRM from the files, like was done with iTunes not too long ago. After all, nothing stays secure forever. I can understand why they want to DRM everything, but since I have no interest in giving my files away to anyone and are only for private use, I feel I have every right to exercise my fair use rights. Especially since I don’t have portable player capable of playing files that have DRM, nor do I wish to waste the money on one when the player I already have is still the best currently in existence in my humble opinion (the Rio Karma).
September 29th, 2005 at 11:00 pm
I can’t find anything about a $50 annual fee on their site. I do see that you get a $50 music credit for signing up though, which is pretty darn nice. Sounds to me like somebody out there is trying to spread FUD.
Accroding to their FAQ:
2. How much do songs cost?
Most of the songs available on the MusicGiants Network can be purchased for $1.29. The average price for an album is $15.29 but the price varies with multi-disc albums.
September 30th, 2005 at 2:31 am
That would be the third last paragraph in this article, the aforementioned Sterophile article, BusinessWeek (http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2005/tc2005062_3663_tc024.htm), Ars Technica (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050603-4969.aspx?32402), aannndd click the “Start Here” button on MusicGiants webpage and read the third point.
Sounds to me like somebody out there is trying to spread sunshine and roses.
September 30th, 2005 at 5:10 am
Hell no, sunshine and roses is the last damn thing I want to spread.
Well that sucks. They hid that pretty well. It should be up front in the TOS and FAQ. I figured since I couldn’t find what was being said about a $50 fee on the MG site, that maybe they had recently changed their policy, or that the articles mentioned were simply mistaken. I had my hopes up too. Oh well. If the fee was waived with something more sensible, like say a $100 worth of purchased music, then I’d join if I could. I don’t think I’d ever spend $250 a year on music to make it worthwhile, not to mention the hassle of getting rid of the DRM. Plus with full albums, I’d still prefer to buy used CD’s. I was only interested in single tracks. Ah hell, screw em all. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!