Comments on: RIP: PlaysForSure 2004-2007
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And outside of subscription, choosing Apple's DRM stranglehold is as idiotic as choosing MS's or Sony's.
Buy CD's; buy DRM free. Investing money in iTunes is like buying the knife that someone will cut your throat with.
encoded at 256 K.
Today I'm playing them off my iPod, my Moto Cellphone,
and my girlfriends iRiver.
Where's the lock-in?
Now each player will need their own drm scheme and their own player.
Look at rhapsody. their sansa e250r uses Rhapsody DNA for drm. Apple has their drm scheme and so does zune.
Apple thing....it's the music cartel that controls that. Have you
forgotten (or were you just too unaware to read) Steve Jobs'
letter earlier in the year asking that all recording companies
remove DRM from their digital recordings? Get your facts
straight before you pass on dis-information. It's not Apple that's
locking you into anything.......and as for those subscription
deals.....what happend when "Certified for Vista" honchos decide
to make THOSE non-compatible?? Enjoy!
In fact that letter to the labels was a scam and the whole industry at large saw it to be a scam and laughed.
Apple has a lock in on iTunes thanks to their DRM platform.
They don't license it because that would kill their monopoly.
The record companies would never let Apple remove DRM entirely from their music catalogs. That's not going to happen.
Windows Media Rights Manager is still very active in the market as the prevailing DRM platform available for subscriptions or download to own offerings.
Rhapsody is a good example.
So is Napster.
starting the process of bringing monopoly charges against Apple
because of the DRM lock in. Jobs reacted in a very politically astute
way and used it to get ahead of the problem. It was a good move
on his part but if he hadn't been prodded by governmental forces I
don't think he would have done it.
Oh, I don't like iTunes. So use WinAmp or the other third-party apps that suppor the iPod.
Done!
Where's the lock-in?
i feel locked in...there are things that it SHOULD do (where is the "in sync" transcoding?) how about an artist/album view instead of that damn list...you have to have a credit card to have it automatically download cover art (seriously, ***?) its like most of the effort is in the html and flash that powers ITMS and about zero effort went into making the UI as functional as possible.
Examples: my nephews have bought albums via iTunes so now they can't buy a better mp3 player this year (i.e. Sony) or a Verizon music phone - most of their music wont work on it. My brother-in-law can't convert his itunes song to a ringtone for the Motorola Q. I thought of getting my sister a non-ipod so she could subscribe to Rhapsody. But she's a mac user - so what's the point? My friend used iTunes to store and organize his mp3s. Now that there are other viable options, he cant convert the crazy Apple file structure to a standard tree very easily.
With Apple, it's all about being locked in.
studios, and NBC show some reasons why consumers might not
want their device to work with only one service."
Exactly which of those three entities represents "consumers"?
It seems to me the evidence is pretty strong that Apple's
"challenges" are because, in the minds of the labels, studios and
NBC, Apple is too successful for their good. iPods keep selling
and NPD had iTunes as the #1 online movie and TV download
sites.
I don't really hear the consumers complaining that much.
squads in this battle... One, have the Zune & locked store while
offering strong help/backing for a multi-company effort. Get
money from as many people as possible.
I'll never understand renting music. If I pay $20 a month for five
years and then drop the service, well; I end up with NOTHING. If
I pay $20 a month at iTunes Store and then hit hard times and
can't afford that, well; I STILL CAN ENJOY WHAT I BOUGHT.
There is a way (gotta know tech I guess) where you could buy
from Apple, convert to mp3 files (couple of steps with the way I
found) and then play that music on any device that allows mp3.
So while I don't understand renting music I also don't
understand all the crying about being locked-in to an iPod if you
use iTunes and/or being locked into iTunes if you use an iPod.
iTunes ALLOWS you to rip music CDs and pop those on your
iPod. No iTunes Store needed. Sure, might be locked into the
APPLICATION but not really locked into the WEB STORE....
I've discovered all kinds of new music, new artists, and I have been able to listen to a lot of old school music (REO Speedwagon, etc.) that I would never shell out money to buy.
If I like a song, I can buy it for $0.79 (alas with DRM).
Perhaps renting is not for everyone but for certain groups of people, it's the greatest thing ever.
I wouldn't touch DRM with a twenty foot pole. I don't even like messing with copyrighted music.
If I listen to it and like it, I want to torrent the album, if I don't like it, I want to modify it. In any case, redistributing it easily is important to me. Thus, so much as sampling copyrighted music, for me, is something I consider.. not right.
Extreme? Less so every day-- you know, as the number of CC albums explodes and the quality keeps getting better.
I'm a happy subscription music user. It's a great option if you like to explore lots of new music (if you don't, it's not). However, Microsoft hasn't been successful promoting it, and this is another bad move. Although I've spent hundreds of dollars happily renting music for years, I've never purchased DRMed music and never will.
Forking PlaysforSure into incompatible Zune was a bad and disturbing move, but it didn't affect me directly. Changing it to "Certified for Windows Vista" is so idiotic--it's hard to imagine much non-Zune Windows media stuff surviving. Unfortunately Zune is foolishly based upon the only bad thing about the iPod (a closed ecosystem). I guess I should start looking for alternatives.
Microsoft's Reality-Distortion Field apparently allows them to convince themselves that Vista will soon be ubiquitous. And, they should prepare for and encourage this by giving Vista more visibility; Vista-branding all the Zunes and music they expect to sell, even forcing music partners to use Vista branding ('till they're extinguished by Zune). It's crazy; and Microsoft doesn't appear to be coming up for air anytime soon.
There's now just more cause for confusion.
nba.com
ufc.com
nbddirect.com
americanidol.com
walmart.com
rhapsody.com
and many other locations
For better or worse, in the U.S. we're living in a throw-away
society. We buy our coffee at Starbucks or McDonald's and
throw away the cup. We buy disposable cameras, shavers,
lighters, pens, diapers, etc. Even with bigger ticket items like
computers, TVs, and cell phones, if something breaks, it's
usually of less hassle and expensive to just throw the old one
out and get a new one. In fact, it seems there are very few
things in our lives these days that we keep around for very long.
But for some reason, the idea of subscription-based music just
doesn't fly with some people. These are the same people who
have no problem with spending money on movie theater and
concert tickets, cable or satellite TV, Starbucks, and restaurants.
This is money spent on entertainment. No one feels entitled to
anything more than the memory or satisfaction of the moment
when they hand over their money for these services.
So why is music so different? It's even more ironic when you
consider that most people are probably going to trash their
$200-400 iPods and iPhones in two years so they can buy the
latest thing.
But pay $60-100 a year for music?! Oh no... can't do that. We'll
have nothing to show for that money when the year is up. Well,
in two years, what are you going to have to show for the $400
you just spent on an iPhone after you toss it and buy the next
new thing? What do you have to show for all of the lattes,
alcohol, cable TV, and movies that you've paid for and consumed
during the past year? Also, record companies never wanted you
to own your music forever either. It's by no accident that all
physical media has been to made to be so fragile... from vinyl
that will eventually skip, to tapes that will wear out, to CDs that
will scratch, music has always been delivered on media that
would require you to re-purchase what you really want to keep
for life. And even with digital media, does anyone really think
that we're going to settle on lossy, compressed music formats
like MP3 and AAC in 10 years when high-capacity memory
devices are cheap and commonplace?
I'm not trying to pass judgement here, but just trying to
understand why people aren't receptive to music-oriented
subscription services when it seems like everything else in this
throw-away society seems so temporary. Or is it just that
people really got used to getting music for free and are opposed
to any scheme that would require them to pay any amount of
money for it.
I do realize that searching and selecting music in these
subscription services does take time and effort. So, if you
decide to cancel a subscription, you shouldn't have to close your
account and lose your catalog. Ideally, you'd be able to re-
subscribe to the same or another service later, and have your
entire catalog be there to listen to. And also, why are
subscription services tied to a recurring fee? Shouldn't I be able
to pay for access to my music catalog just when I want to listen
to it?
I love being able to listen to full tracks of anything and put it on my music player. I listen to lots of stuff that I wouldn't buy--and then sometimes come to know and love it.
Subscription is just misunderstood and underappreciated by most folks; they don't understand what it's good for.
The difference is, absolutely, key to the very concept of true "individual property-ownership rights".
If you -OWN- it, you can use it now, or twenty years from now. You can use it as often, or as little, as you wish. When you no longer want it, you can sell it. All of these rights (and, abilities) completely disappear under a "subscription" ( and/or "DRM") model. Further, these rights, and abilities, are exactly what has already been shown to be completely eliminated, by such an "IP rental/control" mentality.
Try to legally sell an "iTunes" song, you dont want anymore. Or, try to play a song that you have paid for... if its DRM-license has been revoked, or cant be re-authenticated. Or, try and listen to your favorite band... if they are no longer carried by your, particular, "subscription" service.
In this case...
...if a company goes out of business, you lose the music you have been paying for. ...if a company decides to discontinue access (or methodology of distribution), you lose the music you have been paying for. ...if a company decides to sell, or discontinue, any particular "content", you lose the music you have been paying for. Or, if a company decides to demand additional payment, you do what ever they say, or, you lose the music you have been paying for. And, the simple fact is that, you will probably end-up paying more for what you actually use, than if you simply -bought- it (unencumbered).
Frankly, all of these ("subscription/DRM") problems (which certain industries are actually trying to force upon "consumers"), would simply never exist if people understood, and refused to accept the (perpetual-payment, no ownership, complete loss of control, and freedom) model of "content access", that the media industries are trying to shove down our throats.
Even for subscription services, PlaysForSure was just terribly implemented by
Microsoft. When "Janis"/PlaysForSure subscription services came out, I
signed up. At first, it was nothing but pain. I kept having DRM license store
corruption issues within Windows Media Player. The solution was typically to
delete my license store and rebuild it, which meant having to acquire the
licenses for about 4000 tracks. It was a process that took all day!
Sometimes that wouldn't work and I would forced to re-download all 4000
tracks!
Then, when I signed up for the ToGo service that allowed me to transfer the
tracks to my portable, the transfer took FOREVER! I discovered later that it
was due to a bad design on Microsoft's part in the way they chained licenses.
Turned out, the more tracks you added, the more time it took to download a
license and transfer the track (seems like they used an O(n^2) algorithm that
didn't scale very well). Makes you wonder if they had a Freshman Summer
intern designing the system.
Microsoft finally realized their design mistake and issued a patch for
Windows Media Player. However, after installing the patch, I had to re-
license all 4000 tracks, delete them off my player and reformat it, and then
re-transfer all the tracks.
I thought all my troubles were behind me until one day I plugged in my Rio
Carbon for it's monthly sync-to-tell-it-you're-still-subscribed connection
with my computer. And suddenly, none of my music would play! It turns out
that someone in Redmond accidentally deleted the device license for the Rio
Carbon off the DRM servers and just like that, Rio Carbons all across the
country could no longer play subscription music!
And they couldn't put the device license back! Turns out that with Windows
Media Player 10, once a license for a device was revoked, it was revoked
forever on your computer unless you reinstalled Windows or installed the at-
the-time Windows Media Player 11 beta. And once I installed the beta, I
started having problems with downloading new content from my
subscription service, which obviously hadn't tested with the new WMP beta
software.
Not only that, but there were a few times, where I took my player on a trip,
under the belief that I had recently synced to my computer, but during the
trip, the player refused to play any of the subscription tracks because it said
the license had expired! So, for a week I was without any music until I could
get back home to sync it up. For people who are supposed to be so smart,
why would you design something this way? Can't you at least give someone
a 30 day grace period from the time you detect that the license has expired
(and not from the time that you think the license actually expired)? And
what's this nonsense of having to connect it to a computer once a month to
verify a subscription. Once I fill an MP3 with music, I rarely connect it back
up. You think they would have provided some other way, like going to a web
site with your account (e.g., through my cell phone) to get a code to enter
into my MP3 player.
Finally, I discovered that there was about a 3-4 second gap between tracks
whenever I played these subscription tracks on my MP3 player. I read
somewhere that it was blamed on requiring a lot of CPU power to verify a
license and that license verification was being done before playing each
track. Skipping through subscription track playlists also took forever.
So, I completely agree. For me, the idea of a music subscription service is
great, it's just that Microsoft completely dropped the ball with a shoddy
design and implementation of its PlaysForSure service.
And also, why doesn't PlaysForSure work on Macs or Linux or on game
consoles? If you want to create a universal subscription solution, it needs to
be platform independent. And now they are re-labeling it to be "Certified
For Windows Vista?" Who wants to require that Windows Vista needs to be in
the picture whenever they want to listen to their music. Are you kidding me?
!!!
Interestingly enough Adobe has also gotten on board with the Flash RMS platform for Flash video and audio coming out in January.
they go on to partner with MTV to battle iTunes, but that falls throw in no time. All the while Microsoft's core businesses are being bested by their competition because
Microsoft has neglected them. THIS is why I will not buy a Microsoft product, I know it's only a matter of time before they no longer support it and have moved onto another
half baked scheme and I'm left out in the cold.
When is MS going to learn that it doesn't need to compete against Apple's non-OS products, Google, etc?
They are just spinning their wheels playing 'me-too'.
- What's wrong with renting music?
- by BenzTech December 14, 2007 2:44 PM PST
- When I make my $1000 rent payment on my loft at the end of the month I don't think twice about the fact that if I move out in a year I will no longer have access to my old apartment...
- Like this Reply to this comment
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (59 Comments)I don't know an iPod because they don't offer a subscription service.
I currently have over 700 subscription based albums on my hard drive and player. At $15 an album, that's over $10,000 worth of music. And at $15 a month for my fee, that's almost 60 YEARS worth of subscriptions. Not to mention I'm increasing my library by 2-3 albums per month, further increasing my exposure to new music.
If I go 60 years without ever owning my own home, I certainly won't complain about all the money I spent on the amazing places I got to live in when I had them...