Posted by Hammerer on 11/15/61 11:25

"Marco" <mb@no.spam> wrote in message
news:QqednTvlrOUgeIjeRVn-jw@rogers.com...
>
> My opinion is that at the moment it's not worth purchasing music online.
> Here's my reasons:
>
> 1. Downloading music is expensive
>
> What costs are involved with this form of purchase to studios and
> artists. I'm doing all the work, selecting, downloading, transferring.
> No CD package, no artwork, no shipping costs -- sorry, songs should be
> much cheaper.
>
> 2. Music licensing of online music is restrictive
>
> I investigated a lot of different places recently such as iTunes,
> Napster, MS and so forth. I was shocked to find how restrictive and
> limiting all of them are in regards to music licensing.
>
> I don't want to pay for music, download it and a year later discover it
> can't be transferred to another computer or MP3 player. Or, as in the
> case of Napster, that the music I downloaded doesn't belong to me
> anymore once subscription is canceled.
>
> And, no, I don't want to deal with tranfering licenses, copying my MS
> license info from on PC to another and any of that other stuff. Haven't
> I done enough work downloading in the first place?
>
> As well, what's really frustrating is that they don't clarify licensing
> restrictions on the onset, you have to spend an hour to find that
> information on most services. Like, you can only transfer the songs you
> buy twice, or three times -- I'd like to know that up front.
>
> 3. Slaved to music download companies encoding and audio codecs
>
> You have to deal with a mess of different codecs, MP3 players are not
> compatible with all services and you're limited to the bitrate used by
> the service which is usually 128 kbps.
>
> You're better off just buying a CD, in my opinion (until CD's switch
> over copy protection and become limiting as well). At the moment, they
> seem to give the best features in regards to fair practice copying and
> quality of encoding/codecs (which you can decide yourself, use whatever
> your MP3 player likes best).
>
> The only music download place I actually thought was fair and I
> ultimately subscribed to was eMusic, great quality MP3's (many are 320
> kbps) and no licencing restrictions. But, the one problem with eMusic,
> is that their selection of new music is practically non-existent.
>
> Any comments or opinions on this??
>

I'm afraid I'd have to say "no", Marco, as I couldn't be arsed reading it.
The title said it all for me, and I agree, so there didn't seem much point.
Besides, I went into a coma the last time I read a post like this, which
makes me understandably nervous.

If it was about how expensive and shitty online-music purchasing is, then
you're right. The only solution is to download as much of the shit as you
can, for free, from the P2P networks, Marco. Fuck that paying shit, as you
no doubt, probably, said.

[Back to original message]