Crave

We don't need no water...

(Credit: Pete Sparrow)

A couple weeks back, I strapped on my best convincing boots and had a little lovefest with Rhapsody. But all is not roses in the realm of subscription music, and Rhapsody is definitely no exception to the rule. In fact, I have yet to come across the perfect piece of music software or the perfect online music service. True, I am exceedingly picky and jaded, but I also believe that there is always room for improvement when it comes to technology, be it hardware or software.

Certainly, Rhapsody could use some improvement. As much as I love the service and would have difficulty living without it at this point, there have been multiple occasions when my irritations with it have led to frustrated utterances. Most of the problems I have with Rhapsody are tied directly to the software, but as you need to have that installed to organize your own music and use the service effectively with portable devices, such as the Walkman, I feel these gripes are perfectly justified.

1. Software interface issues: The Rhapsody software just looks so...1997. If you don't believe me, open up the software alongside Windows Media Player. See that pretty stacked-album-art view in WMP? Nice, isn't it? I'm not particularly fond of how Rhapsody organizes music, either. You use a drop down to switch between artist, album, and genre views, which are listed on the left, while related songs pop up in the right column; programs such as WMP and iTunes offer more elegant navigation. I also don't like that in the artist, album, or genre window, you can't simply type a letter--say "H"--and be taken directly to the artists that start with that letter.
2. Transfer hangups: In my estimation, my portable device transfers hang about 40 percent of the time. For example, I'll be transferring a list of 30 songs and the files will just freeze up at 17. Unplugging the player and reconnecting doesn't help, nor does shutting down and restarting Rhapsody. I just have to wait until the software decides it's "ready" to give me my music to go. It always corrects on its own and the timeline is completely arbitrary. Seriously...what the??
3. General bugginess: I've spent a lot of time using a variety of software jukeboxes, and they have all suffered from bugginess from time to time. However, the one that full-on crashes the most--by far--is Rhapsody. And this hasn't been a problem recently, but it suffered from a rather nasty, long-lasting bug that wouldn't let me sign into my account for certain periods...again, completely at the app's whim.
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When Amazon launched the beta version of its DRM-free MP3 store back in 2007, many predictions were made regarding whether the online retail giant would have what it takes to take on its counterpart in the digital music space, Apple iTunes. Although Amazon MP3 has yet to reach iTunes status in terms of catalog size and overall digital media sales, the lure of the ever-compatible MP3--which shows no signs of popping up in Apple's domain--combined with the pricing deals offered on the site and consistent growth in terms of selection is set to gain Amazon some serious headway in the coming months.

All the postulating and sales numbers are all well and good, but what happens when some music tech editors (and Brian Tong) pit Apple iTunes and Amazon MP3 head-to-head in the battle of the online media stores? This Prizefight, that's what. We took a bit of a different tack this time around, comparing interface, library selection, compatibility, sound quality, and value in five rounds of bone-crushing battle. As you can imagine, some differences were more apparent than others. However, who will be the ultimate champion in what is to become the leading market for music sales? Read on to find out which service gets to leave head held high and which will be forced to gimp away in shame.

Ding! Ding! Apple iTunes vs. Amazon MP3

As one may suspect, working in digital music gives a person a somewhat skewed view about the permeation of online music in the general population. Everyone (aside from audiophiles and vinyl buffs) is getting their music fix though the Web nowadays, right? Wrong. Although digital music is on the rise, it's still well behind CDs in terms of overall sales ($2.8 billion versus $15.9 billion, according to one report).

Another report forecasts that digital music sales won't surpass physical media for another four years. Well, what say we prove some people wrong (always fun) and shave a year or two off that number? To help you sort through the clutter of online music, I've rounded up my Top 5 choices for digital tunes. These selections aren't really in any particular order; rather, each service offers a variety of advantages depending on your personal needs and preferences.

• iTunes: Owned by Apple, the iTunes store set the pattern for a la carte music shopping and still reigns king over the customer base. iTunes has sold more than 5 billion songs to date, and it offers excellent integration with the world's best-selling MP3 player, the iPod. It's catalog contains more than 8 million songs as well as a variety of podcasts, TV shows, and movies. The one major bummer is that most of the tracks sold in iTunes can only be played on the iPod or iPhone and not any other MP3 player. You must download the iTunes software in order to access the store, but it works on both Windows and Mac operating systems.

• eMusic: This indie representer is quite a ways behind iTunes in catalog numbers and sales, but it controls the second largest market share (10 to 15 percent, according to label feedback). eMusic has sold more than 200 million tracks in the past four years and is currently averaging five to six million song downloads per month from its catalog of over 3.5 million tracks. The company made a name for itself with an all-you-can-download service but now offers limited subscriptions, starting at $11.99 per month for 30 unrestricted MP3s. Thanks to this "track pack" pricing and the fact that the company doesn't currently sell big label songs, eMusic offers an incredible value: it is the cheapest of the bunch by far (27 cents per track with the Premium plan). It also has a large number of music reviews by editors and users alike.

• Amazon MP3: Started by online retail giant Amazon.com, this music store was the first to offer DRM-free MP3 tracks from the Big Four (aka major music labels). In fact, Amazon deserves a lot of credit for the current movement to do away with confusing restrictions on music downloads. Plus, the company has a huge audience and broad appeal, which will no doubt give digital music a violent shove into the mainstream mindset. Amazon offers a constantly growing catalog, which currently holds over 5 million tracks. It is a Web-based store with only a light app required for queuing downloads. Anyone with a Windows, Mac, or Linux machine can access the store, which also offers audiobooks, movies, and TV shows as digital downloads.

• Napster: Once the reigning peer-to-peer music service, Napster is now a legal music store. It recently transitioned its catalog from DRM-protected WMAs back to the ever-popular unprotected MP3 format that it slung back in its trading days and currently offers the largest selection of legal MP3s on the Web (more than 6 million tracks). Napster offers some excellent editorial content, including music reviews as well as preprogrammed playlists and radio stations. The downloadable client only works on Windows, but anyone with a Web connection can access the store online and purchase tracks.

• Rhapsody: Similar to Napster in most respects, Rhapsody offers a catalog of more than 4.5 million DRM-free MP3s. It's chock-full of preprogammed playlists made by editors and other listeners and includes an innovative radio feature called Channels, some of which are offered up for free listening. Rhapsody is the only service that allows full track previews (up to 25 per month) prior to purchasing the songs. It can be accessed directly on the Web or downloaded as a jukebox (for Windows only) and offers a subscription plan as well.

(Credit: Amazon)

Thirty-nine. That's the number of PR-related pitches I've received in the past 24 hours. Out of those, just one fulfilled my write-up requirements of being a topic that is both interesting and related to digital music. That's a 2.5 percent pass rate...and today's a good day. So perhaps I am just caught up in the excitement of having a new item to talk about, but I think Amazon.com's new "Daily Deal" promotion is pretty sweet. Each day, the MP3 store will feature a different album offered at a deep discount. The price varies by album, but you can expect to pay as little as $1.99. Even the high-end of the spectrum is still very affordable at $4.99. Any way you slice it, you're getting a deal akin to what you might find in a brick-and-mortar record store's used-CD bin--and without even leaving your couch. Call me lazy, but I'm thinking this is quite the cool (and wise) move on Amazon's part.

In addition to the 'Daily Deal' and the 'Friday Five', Amazon offers a selection of free MP3s each day. Check back often to add to your own music catalog without lightening your wallet. What's not to like about free (and legal) music?

Amazon is also running a promotion dubbed "Friday Five," which offers five albums for $5 each every Friday. The chosen albums will also continue the reduced pricing through the weekend. This week, the five albums include the Rolling Stone's Let It Bleed, Frank Sinatra's The Essential Frank Sinatra, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss' Raising Sand, Linkin Park's Minutes to Midnight, and Andrea Bocelli's Vivere - The Best Of. This week's Daily Deals stem from a recent Coldplay release and thus will be offered on some of the band's earlier albums. You can get all of the band's previous album releases throughout the week for $1.99. Friday, the EP Brothers & Sisters will be available for 99 cents. Amazon currently offers a catalog of 5.4 million DRM-free MP3s, most encoded at 256kbps.

(Credit: Napster)

Probably the biggest piece of digital music news to come out of CES 2008 was that Napster was planning to offer its complete catalog of more than 6 million tracks in the unprotected MP3 format.

On Tuesday, with the launch of version 4.5 of the software and store, that announcement becomes a reality. Although digital music stores such as eMusic, Amazon MP3, and even Napster itself already had MP3s on offer before this point, the collective catalogs of all three didn't even come near the volume of tracks you can find in the entire Napster library. All four major labels and thousands of indies are represented in the store, and every track will be available at the standard 99 cent price point.

Napster's Web-based store with the online media player window open.

(Credit: Napster)

In addition, Napster's Web-based store, which is all that is required for MP3 purchases and downloads, is compatible with every operating system. And--of course--the MP3s can be played on any MP3 player, portable video player, or music cell phone. Currently, 95 percent of the catalog is encoded at 256Kbps, which is reasonably high-quality for an MP3, and each track comes with hi-resolution album art (at least 1,000x1,000 pixels). Although Napster has quite an international presence, the MP3 store will only be available to U.S. residents for the time being.

Napster will continue to offer its online and To Go subscription services for $12.95 or $14.95 per month, respectively. The music associated with a subscription will remain in the protected WMA format with the time-out capability.

The company did make some improvements to its online interface. It now features a "liquid layout," which resizes everything within both the store and media player windows when you adjust the size of either window. Napster has also improved its download management system so that users can better view what has been purchased already and whether it was ever downloaded after the purchase.

Sadly, because of label restrictions, Napster will not be offering any type of trade program for customers who have a library of DRM-protected WMA files that they purchased a la carte. However, the licenses on those files will continue to be supported by the service, so no need to worry about a repeat of the MSN Music scandal. At least not for now.

Executives from MySpace officially announced the creation of MySpace Music, a service that will be jointly operated by News Corp.'s MySpace and, at least initially, three out of the four top record labels.

The Thursday morning teleconference MySpace held with the press was anticlimactic since details about the service have been leaking for weeks.

The service will roll out gradually over the next three to four months and offer free streaming music, unprotected MP3 downloads, ringtones, and e-commerce offerings such as merchandise and ticket sales, said MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe. Among the top four music companies, EMI was the lone holdout. A source with knowledge of the negotiations said that MySpace and EMI continue to seek a deal.

For more on this breaking story, see News.com's coverage.

BlackBerry owners may be feeling like they have nothing to brag about now that the iPhone has added connectivity to Exchange e-mail systems--the BlackBerry's bread-and-butter feature.

Soon, BlackBerry users will have an over-the-air music download store designed just for them.

(Credit: Research In Motion)

Not to worry. By April, Blackberry owners will have something the iPhone still lacks--the ability to download songs over the air from any location with cellular access. Canadian company Puretracks, which has licensed more than two million songs from all four major labels and plenty of indies, announced plans to launch a mobile store for the BlackBerry family of devices in April.

The files will be in the AAC format used by iTunes, which offers higher quality at small file sizes than MP3. But unlike iTunes, none of the songs will be encumbered by DRM, allowing users to transfer them to as many computers as they like. Puretracks also promises to make a Wi-Fi enabled version of the store for BlackBerry devices with built-in Wi-Fi connectivity--a direct competitor to the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store. No word yet on download pricing.

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Earlier this week, I attended the SanFran Music Tech Summit, best described as a meeting of the minds of those who are deeply involved or invested in the music technology space. To quote the event Web site: "We will meet to discuss the evolving music/business/technology ecosystem in a proactive, conducive to deal-making environment." I know...sounds a touch boring, but it was actually quite the opposite. In fact, I've come to the realization that conferences with an emphasis on panels are infinitely more informative, entertaining, and relaxing than those centering around massive product launches (ahem, CES). The panels covered topics of varying interest in the music space, and although none really focused on hardware devices, each offered some interesting insight into how technology continues to change to music industry as well as what it is doing to help consumers hear what they want and discover new content.

Now I could go on and describe the three panels that I attended in excruciating detail, but in the interest of not putting you to sleep, I think we'll discuss something that never fails to incite some form of interest: good ol' Digital Rights Management. Ah, DRM...what a tangled web you weave. The technology was a hot topic throughout the course of the conference. Unsurprisingly, the subject turned into a rousing debate during the Artists, Copyrights & Technologies panel, with panelists talking over one another and audience members chiming in out of turn. It was quite the frenzy. And it was great. Clearly, DRM is a touchy topic for many people who are involved in digital content--and that's a lot of people. We have the producers, negotiators, marketers, distributors, purchasers, and even educators, which is the term I apply loosely to myself and other tech editors who have the job of explaining DRM to frustrated users. Indeed, it takes very little provocation for me to get riled up about it myself--if you have any doubts, have a listen to the MP3 Insider podcast.

But back to the panelists. There was quite an array of backgrounds represented, which is always good at these "round tables." The moderator was an independent musician, as was the representative from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the founder of CD Baby (who, incidentally, founded the site to promote his own music--gotta love that). Then, there was the CEO of Songbird, the CEO and Chair of TAG Strategic, and a lawyer specializing in artists' rights. The moderator and the EFF rep (unsurprisingly) were the most outspoken against DRM, essentially noting that it restricted the artist and consumer alike and was the reason that many people acquired music through illegal means (P2P services)--they want to be able to get the music they like and play it on any device they want, i.e. fair use. That seemed to be the general feeling of the audience as well. For the most part, positive comments made by other panelists about DRM were met with at least a hint of disdain. Mostly, I think, because people have trouble separating DRM from its reputation, but there are some logical points to be gleaned from both sides the conversation.

First, many people are willing to contribute directly to the artist--or even invest in them--if they are given the opportunity and easy access to digital music that they can use how and where they please. In fact, there are those of us who believe that given the choice between this and getting free music from a questionable source, the overwhelming majority will choose the former. This also plays nicely into the idea that people value something more if they pay for it (even if it's just a penny), and this is an important thing for the musicians and many of the listeners. Not to say people still shouldn't be able to buy from stores such as iTunes, but once you take away the DRM it frees people up to purchase from many different sources for a variety of players, rather than getting stuck in a monopolostic "one device, one service" situation.

The other point is that not all DRM is bad. For example, music subscription services could not exist without it. The copy protection is necessary in order for the services to keep track of the time cycles of the subscriptions and to cut off access when a user ceases to pay. It's also necessary for Internet radio services to use some encryption--also DRM--in order to stay up and running, and I think we can all agree that having Internet radio readily available is a good thing. Innovative devices such as the Ibiza Rhapsody, the Slacker Portable Player, and the Sansa Connect would also not survive without DRM. The bottom line is that there should be different types of DRM to serve different purposes, but in the end what it should do is open up more opportunities for users to listen to music, rather than restrict and confuse.

OK, after that little DRM love fest I just had, I'm feeling a little dirty and would just like to state for the record that when it comes to piecemeal purchased downloads from online stores, I think they should all be DRM-free. And based on the existence of Amazon Digital Music and recent announcements from Napster and iTunes (not to mention a conversation with Rhapsody), that's the way things are headed...and soon, at that. In the end, the consumer will win (I hope) and that's all that matters to me. In closing, I'd like to push my personal agenda/belief that subscription music is the wave of the future, and quote Ted Cohen, who was the panelist from TAG Strategic: "You don't need to own it anymore...and it's not about 'renting' music; it's about gaining access."

What can I say? I have a bit of a soft spot for ridiculous technology. That's not to say that I would actually recommend most of it to others, or even like it myself, but there's something that draws me to it. So when I received an e-mail--one that I would normally delete without a second glance--with the subject line: "You're welcome to Www.RiniaMp3.NET," and the enticing body text: "Where You can download a tons of music. Without register or pay money for it [sic]," I couldn't help myself. I had to check it out.

As it turns out, RiniaMP3.net is another music download site of questionable legality based on foreign soil, this time in Albania (apparently). The "tons of music," which you can find in the "download area of MP3," is mostly Albanian humor and tunes. Clearly, the site is made to appeal to a niche market. I can assert that the spammers missed the mark with me in this case, though it's worth noting there is a handful of American pop songs on the site as well. As always, download at your own risk, and remember there are other sites that result in the artists actually getting paid for their work.