WMP v. 11
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A friend of mine was having problems with some files he bought at Napster, and in looking at their home page I saw the following, disturbing note, in that tiny greyed out text that they clearly don't want you to pay attention to: "*It is necessary to maintain a Napster subscription in order to continue access to songs downloaded through the Napster service." In other words, you do the right thing, you pay for the music you download through a subscription service, but if you don't maintain that subscription for the rest of your life, then you immediately lose the ablity to listen to all the songs you bought & paid for when your subscription ends. And they wonder why people download from pirate sites...
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
Christopher Duncan wrote:
And they wonder why people download from pirate sites...
I prefer StreamRipper[^]. It's analogous to recording songs off the radio. Of course, you don't get whole albums, but you can really amass a great collection of music you would otherwise never have heard. And (AFAIK) it's completely transparent, so anyone "watching" your IP address, just sees Winamp connecting - no eDonkey or torrent logs to worry about. Disclaimer (in case anyone *is* watching): I only use it to record music for listening when I'm offline (or to take to work, where streaming radio is forbidden, due to bandwidth concerns). Otherwise, I'll just listen to the stream directly. There's been plenty of animated discussion on DRM over at slashbot recently, and the more I hear about DRM, the more I just don't want it. Already, my wife has run into this problem. She has a Roku Soundbridge[^] music player in the garage, so she can listen to her iTunes music while she's working out. It works great for MP3's ripped from CD, but due to DRM restrictionsrights it won't play *any* of the songs she's bought through iTunes. Needless to say, she doesn't buy songs from there any more...
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
And they wonder why people download from pirate sites...
I prefer StreamRipper[^]. It's analogous to recording songs off the radio. Of course, you don't get whole albums, but you can really amass a great collection of music you would otherwise never have heard. And (AFAIK) it's completely transparent, so anyone "watching" your IP address, just sees Winamp connecting - no eDonkey or torrent logs to worry about. Disclaimer (in case anyone *is* watching): I only use it to record music for listening when I'm offline (or to take to work, where streaming radio is forbidden, due to bandwidth concerns). Otherwise, I'll just listen to the stream directly. There's been plenty of animated discussion on DRM over at slashbot recently, and the more I hear about DRM, the more I just don't want it. Already, my wife has run into this problem. She has a Roku Soundbridge[^] music player in the garage, so she can listen to her iTunes music while she's working out. It works great for MP3's ripped from CD, but due to DRM restrictionsrights it won't play *any* of the songs she's bought through iTunes. Needless to say, she doesn't buy songs from there any more...
The StartPage Randomizer | The Timelapse Project | A Random Web Page
I'll admit that DRM is a big problem. Musicians need to be paid, but if people can get it for free, a great many will. Consequently, someone needs to look out for our creative brothers & sisters who are just trying to eke out a living with their music (for every 1 millionaire rock star, there are 10 million starving artists). That being said, I was astounded by the Napster thing. I mean, here you have people paying for the music. That's what you want, right? And so the honest people who sign up get screwed in the long run for their integrity? That blows.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
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So, I've Vista RC1 installed (and that's been a nice experience BTW), and so I've used WMP v. 11 for some time now. Before Vista RC1 I've used iTunes for my music management, music playback, and ripping of CDs. I can safely say that unless iTunes v. 7 brings something new to the table I will so not go back. WMP v. 11 is an awesome player, and for the first time did MS get the Library portion of the app rigth. It's wonderful to use and work with. One of my all-time favourite apps. And with XPlay (which I've been trying out for a trial period) I can still utilize my great iPod. Of course it rules out iTunes Music Store for me, but the file quality was crap anyways so I'll check out some other vendors... Nice!
iTunes 7 is awesome. Gapless playback for the iPod alone makes it totally worth upgrading.
Once you wanted revolution
Now you're the institution
How's it feel to be the man? -
iTunes 7 is awesome. Gapless playback for the iPod alone makes it totally worth upgrading.
Once you wanted revolution
Now you're the institution
How's it feel to be the man? -
I'll admit that DRM is a big problem. Musicians need to be paid, but if people can get it for free, a great many will. Consequently, someone needs to look out for our creative brothers & sisters who are just trying to eke out a living with their music (for every 1 millionaire rock star, there are 10 million starving artists). That being said, I was astounded by the Napster thing. I mean, here you have people paying for the music. That's what you want, right? And so the honest people who sign up get screwed in the long run for their integrity? That blows.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
Christopher Duncan wrote:
That being said, I was astounded by the Napster thing. I mean, here you have people paying for the music. That's what you want, right? And so the honest people who sign up get screwed in the long run for their integrity?
That is the entire problem with DRM. People who do the right thing and buy the music get a crippled version that won't work on half their devices, can't be taken to work and used, can't be played on a friends system etc. People that "steal" the music get a superior product that can be played anywhere! It's utterly backwards! It almost seems as though people are being actively encouraged to break the law, just to get something that works the way they want. (Of course, I can't come up with a better way of doing things either, but that's neither here nor there...)
The StartPage Randomizer | The Timelapse Project | A Random Web Page
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A friend of mine was having problems with some files he bought at Napster, and in looking at their home page I saw the following, disturbing note, in that tiny greyed out text that they clearly don't want you to pay attention to: "*It is necessary to maintain a Napster subscription in order to continue access to songs downloaded through the Napster service." In other words, you do the right thing, you pay for the music you download through a subscription service, but if you don't maintain that subscription for the rest of your life, then you immediately lose the ablity to listen to all the songs you bought & paid for when your subscription ends. And they wonder why people download from pirate sites...
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
Did your friend pay a price per song to purchase these songs, or does he pay a monthly service charge? Now if your freind paid $1 or so for each of the songs, he shouldn't have any problems until he tries to transfer them to another machine. If he's paying a monthly service charge, then what does he expect? I pay 12 bucks a month to yahoo music engine, I add/remove whatever songs I want on my iRiver (192kbs), and as long as I pay my monthly subscription, I can listen to them all I want. Granted, I don't own the music, but hey, I've got access to over a million songs, I can play them on 3 different computers, load them onto my iRiver, and even connect my iRiver to my car stereo.
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I lack signature. -
iTunes 7 is awesome. Gapless playback for the iPod alone makes it totally worth upgrading.
Once you wanted revolution
Now you're the institution
How's it feel to be the man? -
Christopher Duncan wrote:
That being said, I was astounded by the Napster thing. I mean, here you have people paying for the music. That's what you want, right? And so the honest people who sign up get screwed in the long run for their integrity?
That is the entire problem with DRM. People who do the right thing and buy the music get a crippled version that won't work on half their devices, can't be taken to work and used, can't be played on a friends system etc. People that "steal" the music get a superior product that can be played anywhere! It's utterly backwards! It almost seems as though people are being actively encouraged to break the law, just to get something that works the way they want. (Of course, I can't come up with a better way of doing things either, but that's neither here nor there...)
The StartPage Randomizer | The Timelapse Project | A Random Web Page
Miszou wrote:
Of course, I can't come up with a better way of doing things either, but that's neither here nor there...
Actually, in a community of developers, this is the most important point there could be. I'm telling you, forget about new operating system versions that are little more than a fresh coat of paint. Solving the DRM problem so that neither musicians nor consumers get screwed (or even inconvenienced) is the next Killar App.
Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalStrategyConsulting.com
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I am having a few issues. (Most notably being the issue where you get scratchy sound if you turn the volume slider down and the double-speed issue when playing a game.) But those aren't really a big deal for me because I've got my iPod. I rarely use my computer to listen to my music anymore. (It's too inconvenient if I want to keep listening to something while I walk away from the computer.)
Once you wanted revolution
Now you're the institution
How's it feel to be the man? -
So, I've Vista RC1 installed (and that's been a nice experience BTW), and so I've used WMP v. 11 for some time now. Before Vista RC1 I've used iTunes for my music management, music playback, and ripping of CDs. I can safely say that unless iTunes v. 7 brings something new to the table I will so not go back. WMP v. 11 is an awesome player, and for the first time did MS get the Library portion of the app rigth. It's wonderful to use and work with. One of my all-time favourite apps. And with XPlay (which I've been trying out for a trial period) I can still utilize my great iPod. Of course it rules out iTunes Music Store for me, but the file quality was crap anyways so I'll check out some other vendors... Nice!
I still can't run WMP 11. :(( The Microsoft download web site helpfully tells me: "Setup detected that you are running: Windows XP Professional x64 Edition", yet despite giving me a 25MB download it will only install on 32 bit Windows XP.
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