Legal Music Downloads Catching On

[Chris Gohlke]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.betanews.com/article/Legal_Music_Downloads_Catching_On/1121959259' target='_blank'>http://www.betanews.com/article/Legal_Music_Downloads_Catching_On/1121959259</a><br /><br /></div><i>"A recording industry interest group said that downloads of legal digital music tripled during the first six months of 2005, while illegal file sharing only saw a small increase, raising industry hopes that consumers are turning away from P2P file-sharing services."</i><br /><br />I guess I am a Luddite when it comes to this. I do not want to deal with a DRM'ed file. If I buy music, I want to be able to play it wherever I want with minimal effort on my part.

[mcsouth]

What an amazing concept - respond to the market demands, and you can be successful with minimal threat from piracy!

I have purchased more CD's in the last year or so for one simple reason - I've started purchasing music at MSN Music.com - I tend to pick up one or two songs from different artists that I never listened to before. The next thing I know, I'm buying more of their music, spurring me to go buy one or more of their CD's (although I often tend to buy those on eBay - cheaper :twisted: ).

I'm generally not a big fan of the DRM solutions that seem to be out there, but I haven't had too much trouble with the MSN music files I bought - I tend to burn a CD from that music anyways to listen in my car - I then rip the music on my PC at work to transfer to my MP3/WMA player. I'm looking at picking up a PlaysForSure player (Creative Zen Micro looks good), which should eliminate the need to rip the CD to get rid of the DRM. I would prefer a bit higher bitrate than the 160 kbps that MSN Music uses, but in general, the files sound fine to my 40+ year old ears.

The really cool part so far is buying songs from my past that I loved, but never sprung for the CD, or in some cases, buying music that I only had on cassette tape. I'm still not a huge purchaser on online music, but I have certainly spent more money on music since the online stores have taken shape.

[Neil Enns]

I had a stint where I was buying singles from Napster, and it drove me NUTS. You could only use the files on 3 computers, ever, and their software is buggy as heck and still has my Windows Media Player at home all horked whenever I get to one of the songs.

Enter MSN Music. For DRMed stuff it's great. I can register up to five different computers to listen to the music, and I can add/remove computers all the time. Buy a new home PC? No worries, just de-authorize your old one and authorize the new one. And you can burn to CD, and transfer to portable devices.

I still buy CDs, but for one-off singles, it's great.

Neil

[bluemax]

Looks like the next incarnation of Windows (Vista) will make all DRM discussions moot. I've been burned by DRM when the company that held the keys to the file lost interest in the whole affair and left me with files that will no longer play. I'll buy the CDs and rip them to MP3s so I know I will be able to play them wherever and whenever I want. I don't share them with others except when I play them.

Bill B.

[jlp]

Either I buy CDs and rip the ones I like as MP3s or record Internet radio as MP3s as well.

StationRipper rips up to 600!! streams at once (2 streams when unregistered, registration only costs $15). Records ShoutCast streams.

This way you can discover new songs for free and buy the ones you like with a link from SR.

To #€££ with DRM: too many headaches, too complicated, too many uncertainties, too many problems.

I can now listen to CDs I bought up to 20 years ago, I can buy unprotected CDs now and will be able to play them for the very far away future!!

Heck, most probably my kids will be able to play them as well!!

What about this bl@@dy DRM $#!T ???

[Crocuta]

I can register up to five different computers to listen to the music, and I can add/remove computers all the time. Buy a new home PC? No worries, just de-authorize your old one and authorize the new one. And you can burn to CD, and transfer to portable devices.

Neil

I'll admit that this solves one of my major problems. At least the vendor is now willing for you to listen to the music indefinitely. The remaining problem, though, is what happens when you spend hundreds or thousands of dollars collecting music over a decade and MSN decides to get out of the music business? Because it requires their computers to authenticate the use of your music, you are totally at their mercy for continued use.

My rule of thumb is that I only buy IP that is DRM-free or that can be unlocked without the use of an external server somewhere. Something like eReader works great because the code to unlock the ebook is contained within the file I downloaded. Even if they disappear, I can still read my books. That's what I'd look for in music too, though I'm not aware of anyone who does that.

If the companies would just get it through their heads that they don't need DRM at all, then things would take off even faster than they are (and would have about 5 years ago). We've seen over and over with all sorts of IP that if you make the product available, conveniently and at a fair price, most people will pay. Those that would still steal are not mostly the people who were going to buy anyway.