eric521
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2002
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I recently subscribed to Napster To Go, after having been a reasonably long time user of Rhapsody. I think most people who sit tethered to a desk for most of the day understand the value of a Rhapsody/Napster type service. Its not audiophile quality, but it provides tons of value in being able to explore music (new artists, new genres that I wouldn't shell out $15/disc to sample).
Outside of the office though, there was no real good way to use the library that Napster/Rhapsody offers. Now that NTG has launched, I can download the music to a portable player (without purchasing the music at the normal $1/song rate). So I can have a mp3 player with 5-20g of music drawn from the library. Its not lossless, its not Ogg, etc, but it's still an incredible opportunity to hear more music and more varied music than previous music distribution channels have allowed at a reasonable price.
I haven't actually used the service yet, so I'm speaking conceptually. If its a poor implementation, then so be it. But I think the concept of "renting music" is a good one, even though NTG seems to be getting bashed at a lot of websites.
So onto my rant: websites and blogs reviewing NTG are convinced the offering is a ripoff by greedy corporate types:
From "thedigitalmusicweblog":
Is this any way to compete with ubiquitous, free, portable music in the standard MP3 format? Give me a freakin’ break. My ten bucks a month is well spent for desktop access to unlimited Napster downloads. I can make them portable by the arduous process of converting them to MP3 (an unauthorized and difficult process). I can also purchase individual tracks for 99 cents, then burn or convert them (authorized). But don’t charge me extra every month for the “privilege” of moving my rented music off the desktop. Get over yourselves and make the music portable to start with. Consumers should avoid this bogus, self-righteous marketing tactic like the evil plague that it is.
From "slickdeals" re: free mp3 player with 1yr of service:
"IRIVER awesome. 1 year of Napster.. Very American, almost as bad as Micro$oft now. You are aware you cannot retrieve ANY of your songs once they have been loaded onto the Iriver through Napsters service..? Ever think maby you should just find a decent deal for an ipod or other mp3 player and download all the music you want with p2p networks like irc or dc++ or the hundreds of available free networks that dont place restrictions on what you can and cannot do with your media files?.. Your all jumping on this for measily 5 GB mp3 player? Are you mad? You more than pay for the player after agreeing to this service for one year. Not to mension the restrictions that are placed on the users that limit what he/she can do with there mp3s downloaded from the RIAA controlled company. Napster is a joke. Have you all seen the bloody damn commercials?! Please just slit your wrists now and get it done with."
A lot of reviewers are ripping into this as though it is highway robbery. I think the pricing is very fair. $15 month for a huge library, on-demand. One CD a month; I've got to believe most iPod owners are buying at least one CD a month (or pirating); how else do you fill up 20gigs?
I'm not sure when people became convinced that music is completely different from other forms of intellectual property. I love music as much as the next guy, but it does cost money to produce and distribute music. NTG is designed to basically minimize those costs (no liner notes, no physical CDs, no trucks to a warehouse, no real estate at a retail store) and thus you get $15 all you can listen to music. You still need dollars to pay artists, producers, and to pay off all the capital costs of equipment. Maybe people are envisioning a utopian future of free music direct from artists without big record companies, but I think for most of us, the big record companies have helped widen our access to music (yes, while putting out a ton of crap at the same time). And guess what? Record companies aren't making squat. EMI announced troubles today and Warner has undergone a massive restructuring getting rid of alot of people (and the first thing to go, by the way, is the more obscure stuff, while Timberlake and Spears party on).
Also, as a side note, I like Wilco, but I do find their "free music" crusade a bit hypocritical. Sure, they posted Yankee Hotel Foxtrot for a while, but then sold it right back to the music business (along with Ghost is Born). And they are still benefitting (massively) from the infrastructure (producers/trucks/warehouses/stores) that the profits on music pay for.
The naysayers think "renting music" is a crime against humanity. In principal, how is this different from Netflix? No one thinks having the option to rent movies is a crime. My theory (and I think I'm right) is that it's just not that easy yet to pirate movies, so people don't do it.
So I really hope no cracks this DRM thing, cause if they do, the record companies will shut down NTG, and we'll all lose one of the best ways to get *legal* music.
end rant.
Outside of the office though, there was no real good way to use the library that Napster/Rhapsody offers. Now that NTG has launched, I can download the music to a portable player (without purchasing the music at the normal $1/song rate). So I can have a mp3 player with 5-20g of music drawn from the library. Its not lossless, its not Ogg, etc, but it's still an incredible opportunity to hear more music and more varied music than previous music distribution channels have allowed at a reasonable price.
I haven't actually used the service yet, so I'm speaking conceptually. If its a poor implementation, then so be it. But I think the concept of "renting music" is a good one, even though NTG seems to be getting bashed at a lot of websites.
So onto my rant: websites and blogs reviewing NTG are convinced the offering is a ripoff by greedy corporate types:
From "thedigitalmusicweblog":
Is this any way to compete with ubiquitous, free, portable music in the standard MP3 format? Give me a freakin’ break. My ten bucks a month is well spent for desktop access to unlimited Napster downloads. I can make them portable by the arduous process of converting them to MP3 (an unauthorized and difficult process). I can also purchase individual tracks for 99 cents, then burn or convert them (authorized). But don’t charge me extra every month for the “privilege” of moving my rented music off the desktop. Get over yourselves and make the music portable to start with. Consumers should avoid this bogus, self-righteous marketing tactic like the evil plague that it is.
From "slickdeals" re: free mp3 player with 1yr of service:
"IRIVER awesome. 1 year of Napster.. Very American, almost as bad as Micro$oft now. You are aware you cannot retrieve ANY of your songs once they have been loaded onto the Iriver through Napsters service..? Ever think maby you should just find a decent deal for an ipod or other mp3 player and download all the music you want with p2p networks like irc or dc++ or the hundreds of available free networks that dont place restrictions on what you can and cannot do with your media files?.. Your all jumping on this for measily 5 GB mp3 player? Are you mad? You more than pay for the player after agreeing to this service for one year. Not to mension the restrictions that are placed on the users that limit what he/she can do with there mp3s downloaded from the RIAA controlled company. Napster is a joke. Have you all seen the bloody damn commercials?! Please just slit your wrists now and get it done with."
A lot of reviewers are ripping into this as though it is highway robbery. I think the pricing is very fair. $15 month for a huge library, on-demand. One CD a month; I've got to believe most iPod owners are buying at least one CD a month (or pirating); how else do you fill up 20gigs?
I'm not sure when people became convinced that music is completely different from other forms of intellectual property. I love music as much as the next guy, but it does cost money to produce and distribute music. NTG is designed to basically minimize those costs (no liner notes, no physical CDs, no trucks to a warehouse, no real estate at a retail store) and thus you get $15 all you can listen to music. You still need dollars to pay artists, producers, and to pay off all the capital costs of equipment. Maybe people are envisioning a utopian future of free music direct from artists without big record companies, but I think for most of us, the big record companies have helped widen our access to music (yes, while putting out a ton of crap at the same time). And guess what? Record companies aren't making squat. EMI announced troubles today and Warner has undergone a massive restructuring getting rid of alot of people (and the first thing to go, by the way, is the more obscure stuff, while Timberlake and Spears party on).
Also, as a side note, I like Wilco, but I do find their "free music" crusade a bit hypocritical. Sure, they posted Yankee Hotel Foxtrot for a while, but then sold it right back to the music business (along with Ghost is Born). And they are still benefitting (massively) from the infrastructure (producers/trucks/warehouses/stores) that the profits on music pay for.
The naysayers think "renting music" is a crime against humanity. In principal, how is this different from Netflix? No one thinks having the option to rent movies is a crime. My theory (and I think I'm right) is that it's just not that easy yet to pirate movies, so people don't do it.
So I really hope no cracks this DRM thing, cause if they do, the record companies will shut down NTG, and we'll all lose one of the best ways to get *legal* music.
end rant.
