Greed holding music hostage

[Joanne98]

Saturday, February 3, 2007

By PETER GRAD
RECORD COLUMNIST

So this is the current state of digital music sales:

You can listen for free to any of 3 million songs at Napster.com, one of several popular online digital music sites. But you can play the same song only five times. If you want to listen to it an unlimited number of times, you must become a Napster "subscriber."

That costs $10 a month. You can then listen to songs on your computer, but you can't transfer them to an MP3 player. And though you can listen to these songs as many times as you wish, you can do so only as long as you are a subscriber.

If you stop paying your $10 monthly fee, the songs will be locked, and your access will vanish.

If you want to untether yourself from your computer and transfer the songs to a portable player, you'll need to subscribe to a different plan, Napster to Go, and that'll set you back $15 a month.

Rules and more rules

But if you stop paying your To Go fee, just as in the above scenario, you'll forfeit your right to listen to the songs any longer.

If you want to just play the darn songs whenever you feel like it and without being chained to a lifelong contract, you must pay the subscription fees and then purchase each song for 99 cents, or slightly less if you buy them in bulk.

You can at last "own" the song and play it to your heart's content ... er, that is, as long as you have an "authorized" MP3 player.

Sorry, if you happen to own the No. 1 player on the market, the iPod, you're out of luck. It's not "authorized."

And Napster.com is one of the better deals around.
http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk3MTEmZmdiZWw3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTcwNjkzMTEmeXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk3

What to do. Read The Starfish and the Spider. :)

[rawtribe]

1. I find new music on Pandora

If I like it I buy the CD and rip it to my iPod. I don't like paying for compressed music.

http://www.pandora.com/

:headbang:

[Joanne98]

2. E-mule. Not because your cheap, because you hate corporations!

http://www.emule-project.net/home/perl/general.cgi?l=1

[Mojambo]

3. Independent music for me

Fuck the RIAA.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

4. I don't download MP3s

I don't have an iPod and I don't want one.

Because I refuse to listen to music in a can.

If it isn't CD quality, or else on one of my old vinyls, I'm not going to bother.

[Joanne98]

5. That's a different take. You must have a great stereo system!

[AndyTiedye]

6. I Just Bought a Bunch of Psytrance CDs

Most of them were produced by a local San Francisco record company.
Some of you may have seen the guy who runs it.
He used to bring a soundsystem and mixing gear to the antiwar demos,
attached to a shopping cart!

[eppur_se_muova]

7. If you're going to play it more than a dozen times, buy the CD.

Portable CD players w/headphones are $15-20 -- much cheaper than an iPod. I've never felt the slightest temptation to buy an iPod, but then I don't listen to flash-in-the-pan Top 40 either.