“A new Internet music download site for PCs debuting Tuesday boasts the cheapest per-song rates yet but many of the same restrictions on copying that have stymied wider use of other music services,” Alex Veiga reports for Associated Press. “Although online retailer BuyMusic.com will offer a catalog of more than 300,000 songs from the five major record labels, users of the service will not necessarily have the freedom afforded customers of Apple Inc.’s iTunes service to transfer the music purchased to multiple computers and portable devices, or to burn it to compact discs.”
Windows Media Player 9 (not available for Macintosh) is required to buy music on BuyMusic.com.
“BuyMusic hopes to score the sort of attention that helped drive sales for Apple Computer’s iTunes Music Store since its launch April 28. BuyMusic founder Scott Blum called Apple CEO Steve Jobs ‘a visionary, but he’s on the wrong platform.’ While Apple users constitute about 3 percent of the personal computer market, BuyMusic is targeting the 97 percent of people with PCs.”
“BuyMusic is charging 70 cents for individual song downloads — 9 cents lower than MusicNow, which previously had the lowest per song price. It’s also undercutting competitors’ price for a full album download at $7.95. The iTunes’ service charges $9.99 for most full albums. BuyMusic downloads are in Microsoft’s Windows Media format,” Veiga reports.
“Still, BuyMusic suffers from some of the same licensing drawbacks that the other PC-based digital music retailers have. Jobs secured uniform licensing deals from all the record companies that allow all iTunes songs to be burned onto CD an unlimited amount of times, save for a restriction for making multiple CDs with the exact song lists. All songs on iTunes can also be transferred to up to three different computers and to the iPod, a portable digital music player. Blum was not able to obtain uniform licensing rights from the record labels and artists. As a result, different songs on BuyMusic have different restrictions for how often, if at all, they may be burned onto CDs or copied to other PCs or portable music devices,” Veiga reports.
Full article here.
Related articles from MacDailyNews:
“BuyMusic.com not compatible with Apple iPod; founder expects to sell 1 million songs per day”
“BuyMusic.com TV commericals blatant copies of Apple’s iTunes Music Store ads”
Well I hope PC users do their math. Just randomly browsing BuyMusic, to see how their pricing and DRm differs from iTMS, I click on the new album from Train, “My Private Nation.” The album price is $12.69. The price of each single is $0.99. The song count is 11. Meaning you can buy each song independently for $10.98, but if you opt for the convenience of just purchasing the full album, you pay $1.80 more. I’m assuming that’s a convenience surcharge. Meanwhile, price on Apple’s iTMS is $10.98, thank god for Apple’s provision that the price of the album couldn’t be more than the cost of the individual songs.
I just amazes me the inaccurate and misleading information that gets posted by the Associated Press every day. From a piece today: “BuyMusic is charging 70 cents for individual song downloads — 9 cents lower than MusicNow, which previously had the lowest per song price. It’s also undercutting competitors’ price for a full album download at $7.95. The iTunes’ service charges $9.99 for most full albums.” The “author,” Alex Veiga, clearly just regurgetated Buy.com’s crap, because, as stated, that information is NOT true at all. BuyMusic prices START at $.79 a song, most are $.99, and full albums START at $7.95 but most are a good deal more than that. As written it looks like BuyMusic undercuts the ITMS by a LOT and while in some cases, this is true, in most it isn’t. I’m SO tired of the shoddy “reporting” done these days.
Paul,
From your own site:
“Microsoft Loses Key DRM Battle”
http://wininformant.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=39596
Nice. Microsoft faces 150 counts of patent infringement affecting (among others) their Windows Media Player. Unless the current administration does something to squash this lawsuit (citing Homeland Security concerns or something like that), things don’t look good. See, that’s the risk for Buy.com of using NON-STANDARD, PROPRIETARY formats like WMA.
And how on earth can you actually state that WMA is “better quality”? Are you deaf?
This is directly from bm.com’s “Terms of Use” page. Note that the number of burns and the number of transfers to a player are both limited and DIFFERENT for each song! How to even keep track of it all, let alone the crappy WMA format?!?
“Content Use Rules….
Different Record Label Companies Permit Different Added Uses Of Their Digital Downloads. Information on the Site will state all of the following permitted additional uses, if any, of the Digital Downloads pertaining to a particular music song, partial album or album (�the Works�): (i) the number of allowable transfers to other computers owned by you and registered with the Site, (ii) the number of transfers of each Digital Download to approved electronic Portable Devices, (iii) the number of Compact Discs that may be �burned� in making permanent copies in an uncompressed form conforming to the industry �Red Book� technical specifications to either �write once� blank recordable CD-R compact discs conforming to the industry standard �Orange Book Part II� technical specifications and/or blank �re-writable� CD-RW compact discs (collectively, �Metadata Information�). No other uses of Digital Downloads are permitted.”
End User may only use, copy, transfer and display the Digital Downloads as stated in the particular music song or album�s Metadata Information. Metadata Information is displayed next to each song, partial album or album offered. To determine how many copies, or �CD-burns,� are permitted, click on the icon representing a CD-ROM. To learn how many transfers to registered personal computers or Approved Electronic Devices are permitted, click on the computer or headset icons. As a condition of purchasing a Digital Download, you represent to BuyMusic that you understand a particular song or album�s Metadata Information, which is hereby incorporated by reference. All other rights are reserved.
All you people freaking out…
remember, competition is good for the consumer in the end.
well this is a start but sucks… how are we consumers EVER going to keep this straight… I am giving up on music altogether… I am going TALK RADIO from now on… heck with ya musicians… go and STARVE.
Regardless of merits or problems with buy.com or any of the others, I hope Apple will QUICKLY bring itunes downloads to Windows so they can expand their market presence.
Songs up to $1.29.
Albums up to $12.00.
Can’t preview every track??
To goober
“All you people freaking out…
remember, competition is good for the consumer in the end.”
Well it’s not really a competition, since Windows Media is not available for Macs. So this whole things is not available for Mac.
I might be mistaken, but I thought I downloaded Windows Media Player 9 for Mac OS just last week. Its for X only, but still its available.
http://microsoft.com/mac/otherproducts/otherproducts.aspx?pid=windowsmedia
I’d check if I was at home. I’m not on a mac here at work.
> ” founder says Steve Jobs ‘a visionary, but he’s on the wrong platform”
LOL !!! Does this lamer really expect to find a visionary in Dell or Gateway ??
Window$ proprietary encoder/decoder and atrocious DRM would be a “no-no” for me even if they were half as good as QuickTime/MPEG4/iTunes/AAC. Imagine running a firewall developed by Micro$oft at your desktop … AAAAARGH
Why would a visionary like Steve Jobs (the bozos own words) have any thing to do with Wintel? The looser even quotes the 3% stat, which is bull shit. Most of the Wintel platforms are sold to Gov. and the business world because they are cheap, not better. They do day to day numbers crunching and are in no way creative. Very few advances in computers and technology come from the Wintel community. While almost every thing that comes from Apple is copied and that done poorly. If you like Wintel you deserve it. Most of us Mac Heads could care less what Wintel idiots think. However their constant rambling on, as if they knew anything, pisses most of us off. Why do the biggest 0’s have the largest mouths.
Let’s send BAD thoughts to buymusic.com – we can do it. they did a bad thing.
i love how they list a Yamaha cdrw burner for sale, when Yamaha has announced they are quiting the business of cdrw’s. How’s that for long term customer service??? looks like buymusic.com didn’t do it’s homework…
http://www.buymusic.com/product.aspx?sku=10314093&loc=18862
these are the steps to transfer songs to a portable device:
How to Transfer Songs to Digital Media Players
1. Make sure your computer system meets the system requirements. (See Minimum System Requirements for Copying Music from Your Computer to Your Digital Media Player.)
2. Open Windows Media Player.
3. Click Copy to CD or Device OR
On the File menu, point to Copy, and then click Copy to Portable Device.
4. In the Items to Copy pane, in the drop-down list, click the playlist, category, or other item that you want to copy.
5. Clear the check boxes next to any files you do not want to copy.
6. In the Items on Device pane, in the drop-down list, click the device that you want to copy files to.
7. Click the Copy button. The Player verifies that there is sufficient storage space on the device to copy the selected files. If there is sufficient space, the files are converted (if necessary) and copied to the portable device.
and this one kills me…
8. Repeat steps 2-5 for any other items that you want to copy to your portable device.
wow 8-13 steps to sync to your player?
the ipod is ..uh..one?
He is right about one thing. Apple was stupid to ignore the Windows market. You cant help but wonder if Steve Jobs isnt really a masochist?
What really bothers me about this is that once again this is the well-heeled wheeling and dealing and reaping the rewards while the TRUE pioneers are litigated out of existence (oh and every time you start “Sherlock” just remember what happened to “Watson” – If you think Apple is such a white knight your a brain dead monkey – no really you are, there is simply no further discussion to be had so shutup). Digital music downloads should have been a reality nearly 10 years ago. Apple/Steve didnt do anything except pick up on a trend that other more “visionary” people started years ago. Now buymusic.com has taken it one step further by using all Microsoft proprietary formats. It wont be long now before you can ONLY purchase music in those formats – then come the exclusive contracts and Microsoft wielding absolute power over who can and who cannot renew a license. And the “good ‘ole boys club” is alive and well in the USA.
Screw apple and screw buymusic.com and screw the record companies. Ill just keep getting my music for free. Either online, or by taking my laptop to the library. They had their chance to earn my buisness years ago, instead they continued to rape consumers with their 17 dollar CDs, while squashing any true pioneers who didnt belong to their rich-boy club.
Information is free baby. You can wrap it up, license it, encrypt it whatever.. but it will always be broken. Dont worry, the polititians in this country are pretty stupid, but soon they’ll realise this and start doing what countries like Canada already do – the “Media” tax, on everything from CDRW’s to hard drives. Most of this tax of course goes directly into the pockets of the record companies, to protect their artificially high margins.. and the good ‘ole boys club is alive and well in Canada too.
Its about Money period.
This morning on Howard Stern, Scott Blum (of Buy.com/buymusic.com) was on the air with Tommy Lee and stated that “…buymusic.com is the world’s first legal music download site.” What the F***? Are you kidding me? The troubling thing is, Howard has talked about the iTunes Music Store and iPods on his show and plugged both…nobody called Blum on this false/innacurate statement.
Even trying to compare BuyMusic to ITMS misses the point by a mile…
ITMS wasn’t revolutionary because of the technology – that’s been around for a long time. Nor for ease-of-use – while it’s the best so far it’s hardly a landmark (since OS X, I’ve learned not to expect much out of Apple in the usability department).
The revolutionary part is that Jobs was able to hammer out a deal with 5 major record labels to let people download music with minimal DRM – minimal enough to hardly be noticeable to the average user. Nobody got that kind of deal before, and nobody’s done it since.
And shutting out Windows users? Call it dumb if you want, but as of a couple of months ago only 2 of the 5 were signed up to keep the deal going when ITMS opens up to Windows later this year. Restricting ITMS to the Mac 3% may have been the only way such a deal could have been cut.
Yeah, limited or not it’s still DRM, and DRM sucks. But if you think the RIAA’s going to just give up and start selling unrestricted MP3s, you’re living in a fool’s paradise. Like it or not, it’s got to start with someone convincing them that they can still make money without treating all of us like criminals. ITMS just might do that – BuyMusic.com definitely won’t.