Rhapsody Relaunches with iPod-Compatible MP3s

[netnothing]

I don't need an entire track preview to buy a song. Likely I have heard it on the radio already for free, which is why I'm looking to buy it.

Plus, doesn't that open up the potential for people just coping the song? I know of a few programs that will capture anything played through your speakers. Spend $20 for one of those programs and 20 previewed songs later I have made my money back.


As to Rhapsody doing DRM free and "embracing the ipod" I think it has more to do with the integration of iTunes and the iPod than just mp3. Not saying the DRM free mp3 won't be used by some, just think they still don't completely get it.

I realize you don't *need* it. Just saying it's a nice feature to have. Sometimes I hear part of a song on the radio and want to make sure it's the same song in iTunes and the 30 second preview doesn't tell me for sure. Or, there are multiple versions of the song and I want to make sure it's the right one.

Hey, if the labels are ok with it....so am I.

Sure, some people are going to pirate the previews. But they are not good quality at all. If you are stooping to that level, there are plenty of other sites out there that will let you download higher quality music for a lot easier.

The kid who sits and has downloaded 1000's of pirateded songs from newgroups/online/bit torrent......certainly isn't sitting here thinking....oh boy, the whole song from Rhapsody....I'll just get it there even though the quality stinks.

-Kevin

 

[Orng]

What's wrong with these companies that they can't pull off an international rollout for an online service in this day and age? I'll keep using iTunes partially because I like it, and partially because I have to.

I think that entire track previews could lead to piracy when these are the things that are supposed to lead us away from piracy.

Hm...

The previews are probably encoded at a very poor bit rate.
Of course, in iTunes the actual tracks are encoded at a mediocre bit rate. Honestly, if Rhapsody can figure out that some of us like our music encoded at a decent bit rate, I might consider it... if they ever offer their service outside the US, of course.

 

[roger6106]

Napster also has full previews

Napster also has full song previews. You can listen to full songs (and CDs) at free.napster.com, although I don't know if these full previews are compatible with macs.

 

[137489]

Plus, doesn't that open up the potential for people just coping the song?.

Recording over the airways is free and not illegal as the song has been modified for marketing and is usually not the version on the CD.

Recording using a software package that plugs into your speaker has long been debated as being similar to recording off the radio. Sound quality (depending on the stream) is clearer, but the song may also be altered if you are recording it from a radio station's webstream.

Most websites you can not just copy the song (by doing click and save as), as the song is usually buried in a flash player.

Also, preview of songs are most of the time, not CD quaility.

The method of copying songs (webstream, peer-to-peer, downloading from the internet, etc), being able to backup your music, taking your purchased tapes, CD's etc and remixing to your own favorite CD's has long since been debated.

Truthfully, I am not sure if we will ever hear the end of it.

to me, do not go after the person who is recording or downloading the music (unless they are downloading 1000's of songs at a time); go after the people putting up the websites and who are offering music for free illegally.

I do not listen to mainstream music, so most of my collection is from startup Christian Artists who offer their music on their own websites for free, until they become popular and can sell their music. plus I also listen to a lot of old hymns and Gospel, many of songs are which now public domain.

 

[Fotek2001]

What's wrong with these companies that they can't pull off an international rollout for an online service in this day and age?

Blame the licensing issues for that one. Having worked at a company that deals with music rights licensing in the past, I can tell you it's an absolute nightmare to sort out licensing when a 'song' can have many rights holders for various parts of it lyrics/recording/music etc. and each of those can be different depending what country or region you're hoping to license in.

 

[johnnyjibbs]

All the slating of full-length previews and Real in this thread makes me laugh. How can this be bad? iTunes is still there, exactly the same as before (albeit, perhaps one step closer to moving in the DRM-free direction, although I agree that it is beyond Apple's control), we now have another music store to choose from (or rather you guys in the US do ), etc.

No need to winge that 30 second previews are better. If listening to more than 30 seconds of a preview track makes you explode, stick with iTunes - it's still there!

 

[Small White Car]

Plus, doesn't that open up the potential for people just coping the song? I know of a few programs that will capture anything played through your speakers.

That's the "old" way of thinking: That if we can somehow stop pirates from getting music, piracy will stop! It's this though-process that lead to DRM in the first place.

Problem is, it doesn't work. Somewhere, someone has already ripped the CD and put it on a bit-torrent, so why would anyone go to the trouble you've just described here? A better copy is ALREADY on the internet for free!

The new idea behind all of these MP3 sites is that there will ALWAYS be pirates and they will always be 20-25% of the population and there's nothing we can do about them. Businesses have finally figured out that they're not hurting the pirates, but that DRM is alienating the 75-80% who WOULD buy music online. Why not get money from them, since they WANT to be paying customers?

I could steal music, but I don't. There are lots of people like me. The labels have finally decided to base their plans on pleasing me (the customer) rather than fighting the pirates (who never stopped anyway).

It's slow...they won't let iTunes go DRM-free yet...and the movie people haven't figured it out yet...but it's slowly changing.

 

[g-7]

"We're sorry. We have detected that you are outside of the United States.
This service is currently only available to residents within the United States."

How lame.

Oh, not much different than the iTunes Store.

 

[Loge]

Blame the licensing issues for that one. Having worked at a company that deals with music rights licensing in the past, I can tell you it's an absolute nightmare to sort out licensing when a 'song' can have many rights holders for various parts of it lyrics/recording/music etc. and each of those can be different depending what country or region you're hoping to license in.

Yet Apple has gone to that trouble to offer iTunes music in about 22 countries (last time I looked), but Amazon just have a vague statement about some international presence before the end of the year, and Real don't seem interested at all.

 

[Fotek2001]

Yet Apple has gone to that trouble to offer iTunes music in about 22 countries (last time I looked), but Amazon just have a vague statement about some international presence before the end of the year, and Real don't seem interested at all.

But it took a long time to arrive (over a year I think for the first non-US store) and the music which is available varies widely from region to region.

 

[reallynotnick]

Sure they are DRM free but what is the bitrate on these songs, because that is even more important to me. 256kb/s or bust.

 

[7031]

Plus, doesn't that open up the potential for people just coping the song? I know of a few programs that will capture anything played through your speakers. Spend $20 for one of those programs and 20 previewed songs later I have made my money back.

Audio Hijack Pro? Heh. Not trying to sound like a fanboi or whatever, but on Windows you can actually do that with some soundcards (such as a Creative Labs) through the 'What U Here' device.

Of course, if anyone knows of a (free) mac solution, let me know. (actually, I think you can do it with Soundflower).

 

[wmaney]

Got and Used My $10 Credit

I had an old account and logged into it; I got a message that because I was one of the first 100,000 to sign up I had acquired a $10 credit - I looked under my account, and it was not there; but I added the new Coldplay album to the cart ($9.99) and there was the credit; so I downloaded it and it worked fine. I agree with others; there are too many audio programs that will capture audio from any source - so I think this may promote pirating - not discourage it.

 

[Yvan256]

The problem is, price isn't the only factor.

iTunes = AAC, others = MP3. So with MP3 either I get less quality for the same storage space or I get about the same quality at twice the storage space.

MP3 is more than two decades old now. I remember listening to MP3s on my old 486 DX2/66, on Windows 3.11 with WinPlay3.

And don't tell me to re-encode 256kbps MP3's into 128kbps AAC's.

As for the "let's pirate the previews" comments, I think someone mentionned the previews were very low bitrate.

 

[IJ Reilly]

It's slow...they won't let iTunes go DRM-free yet.

This is the most interesting point in this story, which I think everyone is missing. From what I've been reading, the supposed reason why (most) of the labels haven't given Apple permission to sell music without digital locks is because they're unhappy with Apple's insistence on flat-rate pricing. But then we see that Rhapsody is selling all of their DRM-free tracks for $0.99 and albums for $9.99. So obviously something other than pricing is the issue. If anyone could get to the bottom of this question, then they'd have the real story.

 

[a cat *miaow*]

Apple needs to be listening to the part about DRM free music.. previews are nice... DRM free keeps me going to amazon.

...or music companies need to listen to Apple on DRM music, SJ wrote an open letter on the subject last year:
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/

 

[BenRoethig]

Apple needs to be listening to the part about DRM free music.. previews are nice... DRM free keeps me going to amazon.

Apple is listening and would be opening to expanding the iTunes plus library if they could. However, a few too many bridges were burned in the early days before Steve mellowed and the record companies are choosing to make their deals with places like Amazon and Rhapsody instead of Apple.

 

[lazyrighteye]

Apple needs to be listening to the part about DRM free music.. previews are nice... DRM free keeps me going to amazon.

+1!
Until Apple's DRM-free offering significantly expands, I'll continue purchasing my music elsewhere.

 

[slu]

I love all the people that use iTunes because it is "easier" or has "better integration", but they have clearly never used Amazon or Rhapsody.

Amazon is easy. It automatically sends songs to iTunes with artwork. I don't see how it gets any easier that that. It takes one click to buy something. Amazon also lets you listen to the preview of every track on the record with one click. I like this feature. Rhapsody appears to do the same things. If you can't easily use the Amazon store, I'd find it difficult to believe you can work a computer.

People need to stop blindly worshiping iTunes without ever trying any of the other DRM free services. If you like DRM encumbered music, or if DRM doesn't matter to you and you think iTunes is a better experience for you, then by all means stick with iTunes. But I use Amazon because I hate DRM, and I think the experience is just as good. My point is to try something else, don't use some abstract justification that iTunes is better. Find out if it really is better.

Competition in this space is good for us all.

 

[JGowan]

There's this little thing called LOYALTY. Lot of people haven't heard of it but most Apple fans have … and subscribe to the notion of it. Apple gave us the iPod, the iPhone, iTunes and the iTunes Music Store -- they gave us 6M songs to buy, along with vast videos of music, movies and television.

Apple might not have full song previews*, but I've been buying their products and services since 1993 for a reason: Apple is the best. Generally they're the best deal too. But in the times they're not, they still offer the best all around.

For me, sure I'd like unprotected music, but for really important albums that I want, I'm going to buy the actual CD and do what I want with it. I'm sticking with iTunes on all other tracks.

*first 25 previes are full then you are dropped back to 30 seconds.

 

[Dale_Nx26]

as usual, there are diehard apple fanboys who just can't accept an alternative lifestyle (e.g. rhapsody and amazon) and would rather continue on their DRM-laden ways, who just have to find some reason to bash another service.

 

[cmendill]

This story is a little bit misleading. Windows users with the rhapsody client installed could always purchase $0.99 mp3s that were ipod compatible. They could also download subscription music onto non-ipod rhapsody-compatible players for free. Rhapsody also has a web version of their service that up until now, just did streaming through your web browser. Now they've added the ability to purchase mp3s over the web. That seems like a good move, but the online store seems poorly integrated with the standard streaming site, not integrated at all actually. They seem to be two separate sites.

Rhapsody has been offering 30 free streaming songs per month for a while. These are the "free previews" they are talking about. They are not decreased quality, they are the standard 192 kbps .rax encode that us members get.

So there is nothing new here in terms of "pirating the previews," you could always do that, and as people have said, it is painstaking and pointless to do so.

I can't find what their mp3 download bitrate is. But it is probably 256 kbps as is amazon.com.

I'm still puzzled as to why these DRM-free sites are sticking with the MP3 codec instead of using AAC. Are their any players out there today that don't play AAC/m4a/mp4 audio?

Being DRM-free is paramount for me, and amazon.com is usually $7.99 - $8.99 for an album. I can deal with the slight quality trade-off to actually own my music.

If you are in front of a computer for most of you day, as am I, the rhapsody streaming service is still an unbelievably good deal.

 

[headfuzz]

I added the new Coldplay album to the cart ($9.99) and there was the credit

They'd have to pay me to download that cack!

 

[Dale_Nx26]

It means that when I buy from iTunes, my new songs automatically show up in my iTunes library, ready to be synched to my iPod, iPhone, etc. When I'm shopping in iTunes, it's all done inside the same app. When I'm listening to my songs, it recommends other music I might like - the store is always just a click away.

With some other services, you have to go to their website, register, browse for and buy your music. Then you have to download it and import it into iTunes so you can enjoy it. Why bother? If it's the same price, why not just use the store that is integrated with the player? Hence the success of iTunes.

Except you only need to "go to their website, register" once. The "browse for and buy your music. Then you have to download it and import it into iTunes" applies to all service, each and every time. AHHH can't stand the loyalty/mind control/bias/etc.

 

[goosnarrggh]

plus I also listen to a lot of old hymns and Gospel, many of songs are which now public domain.

Careful with that. Under US copyright law, the lyrics, the tune, and the musical arrangement are each copyrighted separately.

In addition, even if the words and music are individually out of copyright, every individual audio recording of a performance of a song is also copyrighted separately.

To date, most audio recordings ever produced in the USA have not yet reached the age at which they are automatically fully assigned to the public domain.

All recordings published before 1972 will be fully in the public domain on February 15, 2067.

For recordings published after 1972 but before 1978, it they bear a complete copyright notice, they will enter the public domain 95 years after publication, and in the year 2068 at the earliest. If they do not bear a complete copyright notice, they are in the public domain.

For recordings produced after 1978 but before 1989, if they do not bear a copyright notice, and they were not subsequently registered, they are now in the public domain. If a copyright notice is present or if the recording was subsequently registered, they will enter the public domain 70 years after the death of the producer, or for corporate productions, 120 years after the date the recording was made, but under no circumstances before February 15, 2067.

For recordings produced after 1989, regardless of whether copyright was registered and regardless of whether a copyright notice is attached to the publication, they will be under copyright for 70 years after the death of the producer, or for corporate productions, 120 years after the recording was made.

Of course, the producer has the right to release anything (s)he produces into the public domain at any time, if (s)he wants to and if (s)he has permission to do so from the owners, if any, of any lyrics/tunes from which the recording is derived.