One of the many things that I want to experience is downloading music. In the past, I would either listen to the radio, purchase a CD, or listen to the music feed on my satellite dish. As CD prices increased, I chose not to purchase them as the cost was not justifiable. Bottom line, as a consumer, the music industry lost my money years ago.
I have been watching the Napster/KaZaA /Grokster/etc. situation unfold for several years. TechTV even had a special show that had all of the parties represented in an open discussion forum. My opinion is that downloading music is a lot like prohibition. You can not stop it. You have to figure out a way to make it legal.
It was with some interest that I learned about and investigated the Apple iTunes service. I am primarily a PC guy and this capability almost had me buying a Mac. (I may still do this, but the necessity has been lessened.) I think that paying for each song makes a lot of sense. It puts a certain amount of responsibility on the artist to produce quality music for the entire CD. It also seems reasonable to pay less than a dollar for a song. I don't yet understand the copying restrictions, media formats/quality, and MP3 players. More on that in a later entry.
Earlier this week, I heard about the new MusicMatch service that is similar to the Apple iTunes service. Last night, I signed up for the service and downloaded my first track. The track was Sammy Hagar's "I can't drive 55". I downloaded it at 160kbps and listened to it and was disappointed in the quality of the track. I am reserving my final opinion until I put it on a quality machine though. I downloaded it on my three year old laptop and listened to it through my headphones and the internal sound card. Hopefully, when I move it over to my latest PC with a SoundBlaster Audigy2 card and THX speakers, the quality will be better.
I still need to figure out the copying rules before I do that. I think I only have three copies available. Also my playlist seemed to be a component of this requirement. If I make a change to my playlist, I think I get an additional set of copies available. Also, do I want MP3, WMA, or ?.
Time will tell.
Posted by swfields at October 1, 2003 10:24 AM | TrackBack