Trying to do things the honest way and downloading MP3's legally is like asking for brick to be thrown at your head.
I honestly don't know what kind of marketing research these knuckleheads of the legal download world like itunes, Rhapsowhatevertheheckitscalled, Napster and the rest of the bunch have done but it don't represent me all that well.
Love music and frequently buy it? You'll love these services. All push subscription services that want you to pay a certain amount a month to get a certain amount of downloads.
Every once and while buy an album only for two or maybe three songs out of fifteen? Figure you'll download the three songs so you actually get what you want?
That would require a pay per download service. Plenty of those with itunes and Napster. Everyone seems to offers it. Download a song.
Just so you know the only way you can actually play the MP3s on an MP3 player is if you actually get a "-to-go" subscription.
And what if you switch from one legal download service to another? All your MP3s will stop working.
Forget about actually owning your own MP3s either.
Emusic.com seems to have the right idea. You can actually "own" your own MP3s with this service, and they'll work on any player, not just an Ipod or whatever other players the big guys have deals with. Only problem is it's still a subscription based service, and the selection leaves much to be desired.
Honestly, I would be willing to pay $5 or more per song, so long as I could avoid these subscription fees. I'm not that frequent a downloader that I need a subscription package with X number of downloads a month.
I don't understand what the problem is? Sell the songs as individual single MP3s and let the free market determine their price. I would probably buy more music if I knew that I got specific songs that I liked instead of buying bundles of music in an album where mostly I'm getting the album for one or two songs. That was the whole reason as far as I'm concerned why MP3s became so popular.
I'm thinking until competition drastically increases we're going to see much of the same - Poor selection, service, and options.
You might like Pandora.
ReplyDelete"Itunes is a dollar a song, for all songs. Since your willing to pay $5 a song, the market has already decided the price should be $1 a song."
ReplyDeleteNo probs except that I actually want to "own" the MP3. I don't want as soon as I break the subscription service for my MP3s to stop working. Also I want them to be able to work on any player I want to - not just an Ipod. Mac's propriatory history is legendary.
"Sure it has copy protection, but if you ever find you need a service different than itunes, ipod it is pretty easy to get copy portection free versions of the songs with a little work."
A little work? That's not a problem. But what little work? So far all I read indicates that everything the big three sells (Itunes, Rhapsody, Napster) sells is protected.
Seriously, if you tell me what the "little work" is I'll be jumping out my seat with joy.