Leaving Dark Ages "From CDs to MP3s"

[cirerrek]

Okay, we set my mom up with iTunes and an Ipod shuffle, while I still buy CDs from a music store or get them shipped from someplace such as Amazon. I do burn the CDs to MP3 (so it is not as bad as I let on in the title ).

 

If you could recommend a LEGAL provider of musical content, who would it be?

 

Would it be a pay as you go service or a subscription service?

 

Thanks,

[Azazello]

You should leave the Dark Ages of MP3 and move into the Renaissance of OGG.

 

Some people I know use eMusic. To be honest, I never heard anyone rave about their DIGITAL music service, each having enough lows to not encourage high recommendations. I don't use any so my advice stops here.

[the bigg]

iTunes sells songs from EMI at 1.29$ each without Digital Inconvenience Managment and at higher quality (256kb/s as opposed to the 128 you get with the .99$, Digitally Inconventient versions of all other songs). They're not MP3, they're AAC, but an Ipod can read them as well (and you can transcode them either way, if you don't mind some quality loss).

 

Otherwise, at http://www.jamendo.com I was able to find is some very good free (legal) music under various CC licenses. Obviously, they're starting bands, but there are a lot of good ones.

[Azazello]

I thought Mr. 'c' just wanted albums. If you're interested in tasting different kinds of music, in digital form, then peruse the various music blogs. Another of my highly-view, No-Commented subjects - "Your preferred Music Blog RSS Aggregator" - can get you started.

[cirerrek]

az and the bigg, thanks for taking a stab at my question.

 

Why .ogg vs. MP3?

 

Will most of the players out their play oggs?

 

I'm not an audiophile enough that my ears can't tell the difference between 128 kb/sec vs. 256 kb/sec, so that isn't that big of a deal to me.

 

I've got a Sansa e130 player, which I don't believe will accept AAC files, so iTunes is likely not an option.

 

>To be honest, I never heard anyone rave about their DIGITAL music service, each having enough lows to not encourage high recommendations. I don't use any so my advice stops here.

 

Is that because they do what they do pretty unobtrusively or because they really do have some warts?

 

I would like to be able to make backup copies of the songs that I purchase without a bunch of hitches getting in the way.

 

I would prefer the option to purchase either albums or songs, if some services define that as mutually exclusive...read, if one service lets you do both, that would be preferrable to me.

[the bigg]

Why .ogg vs. MP3?

ogg is patent-unencumbered, open source, and usually has a better quality-to-size ratio than mp3s. However, I'm unsure wether most players read oggs - it should say on the box.

 

I would like to be able to make backup copies of the songs that I purchase without a bunch of hitches getting in the way.

Unless you get free music (E.G. from jamendo or similar comunities), or (illegally) download them from P2P, it will be packed with Digital Restriction Managment, meaning you can't either make backups nor play them on your mp3 players. Bill Gates said himself that nowadays the best solution to get music legally is to buy the CDs and rip them due to the hassle of DRM attached to digital downloads, and Microsoft is the author of two different DRM schemas (one for Windows Media Player, the other for its Zune player).

[Guest Guest]

... it will be packed with Digital Restriction Managment, meaning you can't either make backups nor play them on your mp3 players.

 

 

Ummm, then what can you do with them?

 

I don't have an MP3 player or Ipod or anything like that so don't know much about the usage of them personally

[the bigg]

You can usually listen to said encoded file on the computer which you used to download them. Additional (or fewer) restrictions might be added by the specific DRM provider.

[Gorilym]

... it will be packed with Digital Restriction Managment, meaning you can't either make backups nor play them on your mp3 players.

This is not the case with the iTunes DRM scheme, at least, where the main restriction is that you can't play protected AAC files on non-iPod players - but that is quite easily circumvented by burning a CD copy (I've never encountered any restrictions on making such backups of DRM-protected music) of the music and then ripping it into whatever format you like.

 

I still buy ~100 CDs per year (I'm a quasi-collector), but when it comes to long out-of-print albums I'd rather pay 10 USD for a digital copy than shell out 50-60 for a used hard copy.

[the bigg]

This is not the case with the iTunes DRM scheme, at least, where the main restriction is that you can't play protected AAC files on non-iPod players - but that is quite easily circumvented by burning a CD copy (I've never encountered any restrictions on making such backups of DRM-protected music) of the music and then ripping it into whatever format you like.

 

Additional (or fewer) restrictions might be added by the specific DRM provider.

 

 

Also, that is the reason why I call iTunes DRM scheme 'Digital Inconvenience Managment' rather than 'Digital Restriction Managment' - you can have full rights over your music, but you'll have to jump through hoops to do that.

 

Still, the fact remains that the RIAA can any day bully Apple into removing the ability of burning CDs from iTunes files, thus removing the loophole and turning from Inconvenience to Restriction.

[Azazello]

>To be honest, I never heard anyone rave about their DIGITAL music service, each having enough lows to not encourage high recommendations. I don't use any so my advice stops here.

 

Is that because they do what they do pretty unobtrusively or because they really do have some warts?

I think it is because there is nothing to recommend. The services do the job, but they are nothing to write home to Mom about.

 

Looks like you're going to have to be our quality tester of some of these digital music services. Let us know what you think if you do try any.

[cirerrek]

Bill Gates said himself that nowadays the best solution to get music legally is to buy the CDs and rip them due to the hassle of DRM attached to digital downloads, and Microsoft is the author of two different DRM schemas (one for Windows Media Player, the other for its Zune player).

 

I've got a buddy with a Zune and he explained their DRM scheme to me. Not at all what I want.

 

Looks like you're going to have to be our quality tester of some of these digital music services. Let us know what you think if you do try any.

 

Crap, hopefully this will turn out better than buying a modern computer game, where the end user gets to Beta test a half-baked game for a developer and PAY FOR IT!

 

Or maybe the Dark Ages isn't looking so bad after all.

[the bigg]

Or maybe the Dark Ages isn't looking so bad after all.

They do. Copy (=ripping) protection on CDs is much easier (and legal) to defeat than digital media DRM.