Psst ... get cheap music here

ToxicBunny said:
subscription automatically imples DRM of some sort, because once you have the music, whats to stop you stopping the payment and keeping the music?
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What's stopping you from sharing the mp3s that you bought from iTunes on the Internet?

The guys are going to have to wake up and offer subscription based, DRM free services. At the moment people are using free "subscription" services like Kazaa :)

What is the definition of a subscription service anyway? I pay eMusic a monthly fee and get x downloads DRM free and I can keep the music if I cancel my account. To me that is a subscription service. There has to be some upper limit on the tracks you can download in a month I suppose or else you are going to have Joe Blogs download 12 500 songs from you and paying R200...
 
eMusic isn't a subscription service..

you're paying x to download y per month... you are effectively x/y per song.

Whats stopping the person who bought a cd from sharing it on the Internet?
Its not the point. If an industry wants to treat its paying customers like criminals, they WILL lose those customers eventually. EMI has realised this, and Universal is slowly realising it.
 
So because I only get one PC Format magazine a month with my subscription it is not a subscription?
 
I don't get why people who download DRM music just don't remove the DRM... all thats required is a loopback in the playback, this can be done with the soundcard, so no loss of quality. An easy way of explaining it is plugging your speaker out into your mic in (except this isn't actually done, but it is similiar).

The only problem is its quite slow. (if you download a hour of music,you have to play a hour of music).

BTW.. .the only reason I do this, is because my MP3 player doesn't play DRM music... and it annoys me buying something I can't take with me.
 
xrapidx said:
I don't get why people who download DRM music just don't remove the DRM... all thats required is a loopback in the playback, this can be done with the soundcard, so no loss of quality. An easy way of explaining it is plugging your speaker out into your mic in (except this isn't actually done, but it is similiar).
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Everytime you re-encode using a lossy format there is a drop in quality and doing it through the analogue hole will just compound it.
 
I download music for free using p2p or news groups 'cos I can. If I really believed that it was making it impossible for artists to survive and produce I might think twice about it, but I doubt thats the case.
If there was a system were I could pay a reasonable fixed monthly amount for unlimited downloads I would consider it. Otherwise the record companies will just have to come and kick down my front door and seize my hard drive, and almost everyone else's in my street probably.
 
bwana said:
Everytime you re-encode using a lossy format there is a drop in quality and doing it through the analogue hole will just compound it.
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I agree... the mic/speaker out was an example... I'm talking about a digital loopback, no cable required, i.e. a software solution of playing the song with the output set to a file. So it's fully digital.

Also, if you're going to use a lousy format - then you can't expect good results.
 
With DRM tracks, cant you just burn to CD then rip the CD? If so, cant you use a virtual CD app which you can burn the track to instead of wasting CDs. I am sure there is an app out there which does all this for you...
 
Nick333 said:
I download music for free using p2p or news groups 'cos I can. If I really believed that it was making it impossible for artists to survive and produce I might think twice about it, but I doubt thats the case.
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Artists get a percentage of sales (a crappy percentage is what most people seem to believe). If you don't buy the album they sell one less album. They make less money. If millions of people pirate the album they make much less. But you aren't affecting them at all. So in five years time when there are fewer big acts don't start moaning about how there is less good music.
 
I am a music producer and have been for the last 7 years now. I have releases both locally and internationally through major labels. I will give it to you from an artists perspective:

I ca subsidize the months and sometimes years it takes from thought to completion of a track because I have a well paid full time job. Music takes a back seat for me and I produce in my spare time. If however I wanted to be a full-time music producer, I probably wouldnt survive based on the changes some of you have suggested because:

1 - Further reducing cd sales will screw me with royalty payments
2 - Cheap downloads without DRM will ALWAYS encourage a piracy market and screw me further. Anyone who says otherwise has their head stuck in the sand because I have experienced it myself and it affects my bottom line.
3 - An unlimited download subscription service will screw me even further because how can the labels afford to pay an artist any royalties if someone downloads 500 songs in one month? One of which is mine. I only get a percentage (royalty) which is not large. Based on this I might make 2, maybe 3 cents if I am lucky.

I produce for pleasure, not for money - but if I did produce for money, your suggestions would drive me away from the music industry.
 
DJStealth said:
I produce for pleasure, not for money - but if I did produce for money, your suggestions would drive me away from the music industry.
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What about something like eMusic where you pay your $15 and then get 50 downloads?
 
pkid said:
What about something like eMusic where you pay your $15 and then get 50 downloads?
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I am not too keen on it for a few reasons. The main reasons being limited exposure and the consumer being tied into one provider.

Limited exposure: I have no exposure to the US market so you would never find my music there. It would have to be a local provider with ties to the international labels.

Consumer: You should not have to buy whats is essentially a pre-paid bundle. It should be charged on a track-by-track basis, because this further limits your exposure as a consumer and my exposure as an artist. You will probably not shop around because if all providers used this model, you would need a subscription with them all to ownload their music. Lets say you now find my track on a local website but they charge R200/month for 50 songs. Are you going to join them too because you wanted just one track? Nope! So you lose, I lose and the industry as a whole starts to dwindle - again.

You see, the major artists make a fortune, and the general public assumes that this is the same for all artists - not the case. Any industry changes need to be beneficial for both the established and up-and-coming artists of tomorrow. Dont drive us away with demands that are not beneficial to us too - it takes a lot of hard work, effort, expertise, skill, time and money to produce a single track (unless you are Britney in which case it requires no talent, minimal time, fkall interest and free marketing : - )

Gimme gimme gimme... gimme gimme more. Gimme gimme gimme... gimme gimme more. Gimme gimme gimme... gimme gimme more. Gimme gimme gimme... gimme gimme more. Gimme gimme gimme... gimme gimme more. Gimme gimme gimme... gimme gimme more. Gimme gimme gimme... gimme gimme more. Gimme gimme gimme... gimme gimme more.

Umbrella, ella, ella, hey hey hey. Under my umbrella, ella, ella, hey hey hey. Ahuh, Ahuh.

Wow, what artists, what lyricists. And you people actually made them number one!???? Support your local artists, not this shiiiitee please!
 
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DRM Issues

Can someone please explain to me what the issues with DRM are? I dont download music on principle so I have never experienced any issues but judging by the comments here, everyone is against it.

Please explain your reasoning so I can better understand,

Thanks
 
pkid said:
Artists get a percentage of sales (a crappy percentage is what most people seem to believe). If you don't buy the album they sell one less album. They make less money. If millions of people pirate the album they make much less. But you aren't affecting them at all. So in five years time when there are fewer big acts don't start moaning about how there is less good music.
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There has been less good music for a couple of decades now.
 
pkid : of the royalties... MOST artists never see that actually since when a record company does promotion, they charge it back to the artist.

As for big acts... 99% of the "big acts" are complete rubbish nowadays... bring back the 60's and 70's where there were LOTS of really awesome bands.
 
DJStealth said:
I am a music producer and have been for the last 7 years now. I have releases both locally and internationally through major labels. I will give it to you from an artists perspective:

I ca subsidize the months and sometimes years it takes from thought to completion of a track because I have a well paid full time job. Music takes a back seat for me and I produce in my spare time. If however I wanted to be a full-time music producer, I probably wouldnt survive based on the changes some of you have suggested because:

1 - Further reducing cd sales will screw me with royalty payments
2 - Cheap downloads without DRM will ALWAYS encourage a piracy market and screw me further. Anyone who says otherwise has their head stuck in the sand because I have experienced it myself and it affects my bottom line.
3 - An unlimited download subscription service will screw me even further because how can the labels afford to pay an artist any royalties if someone downloads 500 songs in one month? One of which is mine. I only get a percentage (royalty) which is not large. Based on this I might make 2, maybe 3 cents if I am lucky.

I produce for pleasure, not for money - but if I did produce for money, your suggestions would drive me away from the music industry.
Click to expand...

It used to be that artists toured and preformed to make a living. Not that I don't sympathise, but I don't see the fact that a few artists make a living purely off a business model that is doomed means we should put the breaks on the natural evolution of the delivery system of what for most artists is mainly advertising.
If you want people to pay for music give them an incentive to pay that doesn't include the majority of the profits going to record companies and distributors.
 
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