Pandora and Rhapsody
So, I've recently subscribed to two music services, namely Pandora and Rhapsody. Being something of a budding audiophile, I was reluctant to get on the online music bandwagon, but I've been very pleasantly surprised by both of these services.
Pandora -- This was the first service that I signed up for. It's now technically free, but it wasn't when I first joined. Essentially, the idea here is that they've hired a lot of musicians and catalogued a lot of music. However, instead of simply putting songs into genres, they actually took the time to analyze is thoroughly for different musical qualities. So, when you request a song, it will give you songs that are like it based on musicality rather than the 'people who like this also like Britney Spears' crap you'll find elsewhere.
The end result is simply amazing. Lots of people are talking about last.fm, but I still don't trust people to like what I like. Rather, you can tell this system what you like and what you don't, and it will adjust to what you like. There is always the danger of over-specifying and getting into a loop of the same few bands, but a little care goes a long way with this. Eventually, you can create your own radio stations that place a wide variety of music you like.
Rhapsody -- With the purchase of my new MP3 player I felt it might be time to invest in some online music. I considered the iPod/iTunes route, but found it too damn expensive. With rhapsody, for $15 a month ($10 with no mp3 player) you can download anything you want. This way, you don't need to be online to play the songs.
This isn't without it's downside, however. Like any other service, the songs die once you cancel the service. Also, you need to be on Windows to use the player they provide and transfer music. There is a web interface to Mac and Linux, but no saving the tunes and you need to remain online.
Conclusion -- Overall, both these services rock. Pandora is definitely a truly novel idea which I have much love for. Rhapsody is great for me because of all the music I consume. So far, I have downloaded 2,488 tracks. By my math, at a rate of 0.99 per track, I'd have to keep the service for 13.68 years before I paid the same amount as I would at iTunes. Yeah, they'll die if I cancel, but I still plan on buying cds I really like anyway.
posted by X at 5:39 PM
8 Comments:
Pandora's pretty cool, but one of it's more frustrating limitations is that it doesn't seem to know how to handle bands that I like instrumentally but can't listen to long because the singer's voice is unbearable. On the flip side, I also enjoy songs with ironic lyrics played in a musical style that I wouldn't otherwise enjoy.
3:57 PM
Keith, I have your answer to Rhapsody: allofmp3.com. Shady as hell? Yes. Cheap, multiplatform, and multi-codec? Yes. Let me know what you think. While I am normally a FLAC fiend, in this case it's far cheaper to download q5 or q6 oggs - and since the ones marked OEEX are encoded directly from source WAVs and not transcoded from some other format, the quality isn't degraded much.
11:20 AM
The internet is rife with places to get unlicensed audio. Some of us just like doing what we can to support the artists we like. While I don't know much about the compensation schemes used by Rhapsody and Pandora, I'm sure that it's acceptable to the artists or at least the labels that own their rights. I like the idea of some of the less popular bands I enjoy being able to buy health insurance. It wasn't that long ago that Umphrey's stated that as a goal. I wouldn't want to steal anyone's health insurance.
1:20 PM
I definitely see your point, Ben. I see it differently, but I'm still certainly buying CDs directly from independent artists I really want to see release new material, like Neko Case, Four Tet, Boards of Canada, and Death Cab (well, until Plans, now I don't know what I'm going to do).
Here's why I don't see buying from the Russian recording industry as that different from buying from the RIAA: artists are pretty equally screwed under both, and Americans are very much more screwed if I buy from the RIAA. The first part is obviously an oversimplification, but I'm pretty sure that when I buy an album that's put out on an RIAA member label, the artist is making less than $1 on that purchase of $15. And the skim off the top goes to suing us for sharing music. Given the choice, I'll throw my money at the Russians, thank you. If there is an artist whose CD I really want to get but who is RIAA-affiliated, I generally try to buy used...this of course nets the artist $0 (unless you consider that new purchases are more likely if a brisk used market is available). Should I have just downloaded the track instead?
Somehow I don't think you're referring to RIAA-affiliated artists though. In that case I have to fall back on "follow the money": if Keith was looking for a download service that would ensure his favorite musicians can pay for healthcare, he wouldn't be paying such a small amount per track. Maybe the math works out so that the musician actually does get a fair share with Rhapsody - I don't know. Anyway, I suspect that going to concerts and buying CDs the old fashioned way is going to profit the artist best in the long run. But a download service, to me at least, is more of an interim solution between actually buying the CD and just ripping it off. I dislike the idea of supporting bad business practices (RIAA lawsuits, DRM, etc) more than I like the idea of helping out artists.
And I don't feel guilty about downloading music to listen to it for the first time if it's not something I'd hear on the radio. How else am I going to know whether it's worth it to buy?
I'm fairly sure there was circular reasoning somewhere in that.
7:46 PM
While Rhapsody probably doesn't get the artists as much cash as iTunes, supporting the Russian recording industry just seems... wrong. I mean, how much research have you actually done into that, because I'd be willing to bet that there's absolutely no money from that reaching any artists... except con artists! *ba zing!*
Seriously though, trust Russians? My sister spent a good bit of time in that area, I'm all set with paying the RIAA a bit.
So, yes, supporting the RIAA sucks. However, for a lot of the music I want to listen to, there's no way around it. While you may not agree with there business practices, that doesn't make downloading everything you want okay. There's the faulty logic you mentioned. If someone was being a jerk to your friend, would that make it morally acceptable to steal his wallet and then stab him? It just doesn't add up.
So, in the case of downloading music as an alternative to buying a cd, or downloading legally, I'd say its wrong. It sucks how things have worked out, but it doesn't excuse stealing unfortunately. Cause, you know, while you may feel you 'vote' with your dollar, this isn't a charity, it's a business, and poeople need to get paid for what they produce.
As a side note, while big bands make money touring, anyone not in a stadium is probably either losing money or just scraping by. There's a lot of shafting going on with cd sales, but no reason you should join the fun.
4:27 AM
I really don't see how widespread commercial success is a justification for theft. If I invested years of my life working crazy hours, with almost constant travel, I'd like to collect dividends when the investment matured. Life on the road destroys families and sometimes lives.
A band's success might justify being lazy about buying material, instead of trying to pad those all important first week sales numbers. I don't see how you can hold success against an artist, unless they clearly changed the quality of their product to achieve that goal.
I don't think the ethics and legality of the music business should be expressed in equations as complex as the alternative minimum tax. Downloading music without proper artist compensation is either right or wrong. It's not something that is ok as long as the artists net income exceeds the NHL's minimum wage.
As shady as some record deals may be, even if artists only receive 10% of the purchase price of a CD, I don't see the efficacy of robbing from the talent to try to teach the industry a lesson. In fact a dollar a cd seems a lot better than nothing for millions of downloads.
The artists agreed to that lackluster compensation scheme because they felt that it was a better deal than their current situation. Distribution, advertisement, clear channel tithe, and recording cost advances are worth something. They have to be built into the price of a cd.
If artists needed a bigger cut of their cd sales, they'd hold out for a better deal or build a distribution network around their indie releases. Then they'd start to see the costs mounting. With economies of scale, they may not be able to do better to 10-20% profit on their cd sales.
8:37 AM
Most of this rant Downhill Battle says better than I can.
You're sort of putting words in my mouth, but it's not entirely unjustified. Ben, your defense of the RIAA shows all the "good" uses of the money taken off the top, but forgets to mention the payola which keeps smaller names (yes, even some RIAA member label artists) off the radio in favor of playing "In The Club" twice an hour, every hour. Tell me if I'm wrong, because I could be, but I don't hear Phish much on the radio (awesome independent New England stations excluded).
And I don't agree with equating commercial success with a RIAA member label contract. When I'm looking to buy a CD, I don't say to myself, "this band's been successful, they don't need my money", I say to myself "this band isn't signed with an RIAA label, independent artists deserve my money more." I've bought a few of Death Cab's albums from the Barsuk Records days, before they signed with Atlantic - but not before they were successful - in fact, I didn't buy their music until they released Transatlanticism, which was I think their most successful album. I definitely plan to go see them in concert now, but I'm only buying Plans used. Until I can find it used, my money's going to go towards another independent artist, of which there are generally plenty to choose from whose music I've been listening to (illegally). It's just another preference in what I buy.
Regarding allofmp3, you're probably right Keith. I was rather blinded by the fact that the allofmp3 experience is so exactly what I want in an online music store (and I don't just mean the prices) that I gave them the benefit of the doubt with regards to their assertion that they pay the Russian recording industry for every song downloaded. In theory, the Russian recording industry association would work the same way as the Canadian equivalent, which is completely legal and pays American artists for songs purchased there. But it's not unlikely that it's run by the mob - I have no way of knowing this, of course.
If you do find another site which doesn't use completely restrictive DRM (iTunes is actually one of the better ones, eMusic is even better still) and pays the artists better than 10% (iTunes rate - see CD Baby for better rates), let me know.
I disagree with the assertion in the original post that all other services have the same "delete your songs when you stop paying us" policy; that's just something you've chosen to live with because the price is right. It works for you, I find it disagreeable.
And I'm gonna call shenanigans on the "steal his wallet and stab him" analogy.
Incidentally, 10-20% profit from an RIAA label-released album is not a sure thing. An artist, after signing and releasing their first album, may find out that they could've done better (publicity notwithstanding) if they'd just released it themselves. See this old article from Courtney Love. How she is coherent, I have no idea. Maybe it was a ghostwriter.
10:07 AM
Great information...
Best Manga Websites
Techwiki
2:19 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home