Posted by FatKat on 11/15/18 11:25

Marco wrote:
> My opinion is that at the moment it's not worth purchasing music online.
> Here's my reasons:
>
> 1. Downloading music is expensive

Doesn't a cost analysis actually have to include what the actual costs
are? What are we comparing on-line purchases to anyway - file sharing
or purchases from retailers?
>
> What costs are involved with this form of purchase to studios and
> artists.

Who's paying for the servers that hold this music, the internet
connections to transfer it, licensing fees for the music, liability for
lost business if the servers go down - that sort of stuff. Are the
studios getting a free-ride on each of these counts?

> I'm doing all the work, selecting, downloading, transferring.

That's your idea of work?

> No CD package, no artwork, no shipping costs -- sorry, songs should be
> much cheaper.

Or what? Or you'll just pirate them (which may prove legally
problematic & costly) or buy them from a retailer (which just may cost
more)? Also, who buys music for the packaging? I think you're
stretching things here. Also, that bit about shipping costs is a
savings passed on to you.
>
> 2. Music licensing of online music is restrictive

Licensing generally is restrictive, that's the point of the term
license - you're getting permission to do something in return for
following some rules.
>
> 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.

No kidding? I've been reading news reports about places like
Afghanistan, Bagdad and New Orleans, but I guess that's not as shocking
as 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.

I don't want to pay for anything, but as long as we are...(oh yeah, how
much are you paying again?) I don't see why this is so shocking to
some people - and you wouldn't have to find out about it in a year.
Also, with on-disc copy protection soon becoming the norm, any
discussuion about restrictive licensing for music-downloading becomes
superfluous. Also, I may be a child of the 1970's but the idea of
buying media in one form that couldn't be transferred to another (at
least without some appreciable degradation) in quality still seems like
a fact of life.

Getting into the digital age, I was reminded just what the term license
meant when I got my first PC. Software came with onerous license
agreements that offered little appreciable support in return for your
agreement not to share your software. These EULA's made clear that you
didn't really own anything except the right to use the software,
exclusive to your machine.

> Or, as in the case of Napster, that the music I downloaded doesn't belong
> to me anymore once subscription is canceled.

How much does Napster charge for songs DL'd? How does one effectively
argue undue expense without saying what that expense is.
>
> 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?

You, you clicked, and....
>
> 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.

It seems you did know that - what are you arguing?
>
> 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.

Compatibility is a problem, but that's old news. What specific
problems have you had?
>
> You're better off just buying a CD, in my opinion (until CD's switch
> over copy protection and become limiting as well).

Hasn't that already happened? Also, when you buy a CD, you're getting
a bunch of tracks you may not even want. Also, on Napster, it sounds
like you can use Nap/light, and buy songs at a dollar a song, and burn
them to CD. Sounds like a good deal to me - what am I missing?

> 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.

New music has been pretty nonexistent since the end of the last
century. The "free lunch" (and its cousin, "the cheap date") have
always been hard to find. I still don't see what the undue hardship is?

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