[grrr223]

So after buying a few songs on Apple's Music Store, which is really cool, I decided to check out some of the other legal ways of buying MP3s that everyone was talking about, the most enticing was eMusic.com .

I don't understand what the hell that companies business model is, or if they even have one. They offer you 50 free mp3 downloads, and after that they charge you $10 a month if you commit to 12 months, or $15 a month if you commit to only 3. I still feel like i'm stealing the music when I use their site

.How can the artists make any money when you pay them $10 and then proceed to download 2000 tracks, that's less than 1 cent per song, not to mention, I doubt $10 even covers the bandwith charges on 8 or 10 gig. It's insane.

At $10 a month, I'd recommend every single one of you try it. The biggest complaint with the service had orginally been that they only had 128 kbit MP3s, and honestly, who on this forum listens to that crap, but they've just about finished upgrading everything to 192 kbit VBR, which is a HUGE improvement. Their selection is pretty random, with few popular artists, and fewer popular albums, but take a look around, and even if you like 5 or 10 artists, you can dowload their entire catalogs, isn't that worth $10? They have a lot of Jazz music from a lot of good artists, but the thing that made me actually pay $10 for the first month was that they have George Carlin's entire catalog, I'd probalby never spend money for any of these CDs, but they're hilarious to listen to and now practically free.

I just wanted to hear other people's opinions or feelings on eMusic, the Apple Music Store, or dowloading music in general.

 

[blessingx]

Like the Apple store and downloaded my first album yesterday (Billy Bragg and Wilco's Mermaid Ave.). Sadly 128kps mp4 is not quite the quality I'd like (if only it was bumped up to 196), though it's better than I suspected it would be. As I feared I've spent $9.99 and now will most likely buy the CD also (well in the case I know someone to burn it and I won't feel guilty). So I'll probably be shying away from their service at least right now. For some people though I think it's a great service (no membership fees, etc.).

Was on eMusic before their whole upgrade. Liked it, and went on a mad downloading frenzy during my last few weeks (around 20 gigs total). Shockingly

most of the music was crap (I'm not blaming eMusic there, just the bands), and once I discovered this site and picked up a couple decent set of phones, the rest was unlistenable at 128 mp3. Since they use lame preset standard now that has changed. I hope they do well.

Depending on your musical tastes, the two should be thought of as complimentary. Apple only has the big five, eMusic has mostly indie labels. eMusic for example has nearly the whole Matador catalog. Cool, if you're into indie suff.

 

[grrr223]

Quote:

Originally posted by blessingx Depending on your musical tastes, the two should be thought of as complimentary. Apple only has the big five, eMusic has mostly indie labels. eMusic for example has nearly the whole Matador catalog. Cool, if you're into indie suff. [/B]

I totally agree. I love the iTMS, but yes, it does have mostly popular music, which I really think people should quit bitching about. If you ever start your own online music download service, and want to sell 1,000,000 songs in the first week, you can go try doing it by starting off with the indy bands. They will get around to adding them, I can't wait, but give them time. They really need to rack up numbers like that to get everyone else to jump on the bandwagon. Think of it this way, those 1,000,000 pop songs during the first week are going to allow 1,000,000 indy songs to be added and downloaded during the first year, I don't thikn it would have worked out that well if it had been the other way around.

Quote:

Like the Apple store and downloaded my first album yesterday (Billy Bragg and Wilco's Mermaid Ave.). Sadly 128kps mp4 is not quite the quality I'd like (if only it was bumped up to 196), though it's better than I suspected it would be. As I feared I've spent $9.99 and now will most likely buy the CD also (well in the case I know someone to burn it and I won't feel guilty). So I'll probably be shying away from their service at least right now. For some people though I think it's a great service (no membership fees, etc.).

I also agree with you on this. The biggest drawback I see with buying AAC files is "what if I actually like the music and want to buy the CD?" Then I have to pay for it twice? there should be some sort of discount. Oh well, I bet the record companies are counting on that exact thing to happen too, but no one is saying anything about it. Wow, maybe this really will work out for everyone after all.