SA Online Music pricing comparison

OK so just so I get this right, I can use torrents and download illegal music that works on any player with no restrictions or I can spend money and the music will be loaded with DRM... Hmm I love buying things and then having people tell me how I can use them!

Go no DRM and then we can talk till then take it and stick it where the sun don't shine!
 
God article for a change. My wife is going to enjoy rhythmmusicstore.com and at least she can listen to it without having to worry about DRM.
 
DRM for the big lose. It's totally pointless in stopping piracy and only hurts the legitimate user. If I buy music, I am going to want to listen to it on my iPod. DRM stops me from doing that, and stupid international trade and zoning agreements stop me from buying musing from iTunes, so I'd (1) rather buy the CD and rip it to MP3 using (ironically) Windows Media Player or iTunes, or (2) pirate the music I want, or (3) buy the DRM track and exploit the analog hole to convert it to a DRM-free format.

See? DRM = pointless and stupid.

Juice
 
cbrunsdonza said:
God article for a change. My wife is going to enjoy rhythmmusicstore.com and at least she can listen to it without having to worry about DRM.
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Unfortunately it's mostly local music, but it's a really awesome resource for that. I've used it often.

Juice
 
Well Rhythm i use simply because of the Afrikaans/South African music, and their songs are R7 per song which at least compares with international pricing [even though you can't find the songs internationally] . All the other services mentioned should be compared to international shops, because i don't get any benefit from buying an international song "local". There's no "import" schlep with this, so local companies in this space really need to up their game if they actually want to compete.

So for example, R10 a song is already more expensive than overseas offerings. Normally it's $0.5 - $1 a song AND they give discount if you buy an album. This also tends to be DRM free too. Unless the R/$ is above R10, there is almost ZERO reason to buy a song "locally" .

Also, overseas shops tend to have a much larger database and tends to include alot of the indie/international artists too.

While that GetMo sub service looks good , it's way too restrictive and you are forced to maintain a sub to continue listening to your songs. So i guess it's a good way to "trial" songs and then buy the actual songs you like somewhere else. If you ever want to build up a nice collection of "eternal classics", the GetMo service is not going to work for you.

I'm also not even mentioning services that integrate with your device [Zune / ITunes] , which is also alot more convenient to use than a different shop with DRM which may or may not work on your device.
 
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The files are in Windows Media Format and are DRM protected, usable only through the Nokia Ovi software on a PC or a compatible Nokia phone.
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Yes, you can play the music on your Nokia, but what they don't tell you is that, due to the DRM, you can't use the songs as ring tones. Pretty significant limitation in my opinion.
 
Which of these sites' DRM allow you to burn to a CD? That's probably the easiest way to get around DRM : burn and rip to your own format.
 
The Telkom option would be legend were it not for the fail DRM. I'm sorry, but R10/song is a ripoff. Half of that would be borderline reasonable.
 
Juice said:
DRM for the big lose. It's totally pointless in stopping piracy and only hurts the legitimate user. If I buy music, I am going to want to listen to it on my iPod. DRM stops me from doing that, and stupid international trade and zoning agreements stop me from buying musing from iTunes, so I'd (1) rather buy the CD and rip it to MP3 using (ironically) Windows Media Player or iTunes, or (2) pirate the music I want, or (3) buy the DRM track and exploit the analog hole to convert it to a DRM-free format.

See? DRM = pointless and stupid.

Juice
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DRM is SO easy to get around, though. The Nokia Music store has DRM on their music, but all you do is burn the music to a CD and then rip the CD to your PC again. Now you have the music you paid for, and you can put it on all 16 of your MP3 players.
 
Nokia has hinted that they will be moving away from DRM sometime in 2010.
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That's good news, until then, use Tunebite to remove DRM and covert to mp3, wav etc...
 
DAE_JA_VOO said:
DRM is SO easy to get around, though. The Nokia Music store has DRM on their music, but all you do is burn the music to a CD and then rip the CD to your PC again. Now you have the music you paid for, and you can put it on all 16 of your MP3 players.
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Can't you get a Virtual CD-Writer, that will capture the mp3 burning directly in digital format, and just save it back to mp3.

Like how you get Virtual PDF printers. You "print" an MS Word document to this virtual printer, and it saves the file as PDF...

So you set up your Virtual CD-Writer as a 52x speed burner :D, tell it to save everything to some folder on your PC. Then iTunes, Nokia software, etc, will just burn to this virtual CD-Writer, and not know the difference?

Surely this has been thought of before, and shouldn't be too hard to implement?

Will save you loads of time, and you don't have to waste CDs, or even bother with slow re-writables.
 
rhythmmusic is run by a 4th year student from Stellenbosch University, he knows what the people want, hence it is working
 
j@w said:
rhythmmusic is run by a 4th year student from Stellenbosch University, he knows what the people want, hence it is working
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I get almost all my ZA music there. They do not have Steve Hofmeyr unfortunately. They also do not have Stingray but then, that's a CD I just had to own in the physical.
 
ToxicWazte said:
Can't you get a Virtual CD-Writer, that will capture the mp3 burning directly in digital format, and just save it back to mp3.

Like how you get Virtual PDF printers. You "print" an MS Word document to this virtual printer, and it saves the file as PDF...

So you set up your Virtual CD-Writer as a 52x speed burner :D, tell it to save everything to some folder on your PC. Then iTunes, Nokia software, etc, will just burn to this virtual CD-Writer, and not know the difference?

Surely this has been thought of before, and shouldn't be too hard to implement?

Will save you loads of time, and you don't have to waste CDs, or even bother with slow re-writables.
Click to expand...


yip there are software for this...but doesn't work so lekker on windows 7 yet....
 
Does rhythmmusic still charge an extra fee when paying by credit card?
If so I think that shoud be mentioned when advertising their prices, who's really gonna pay by eft?
 
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