Would you pay 5 cents for a song?

The Globe and Mail ^ | Wednesday, March 9, 2005 | GUY DIXON

[Bella_Bru]

Sure.

[OKIEDOC]

Another excuse to TAX the Internet.

5 cents per song yes but no tax from Canadians or Americans licking their chops at the thought of taxing our now free use. The tax monies collected would be used for more government waste and give away programs.

[Clypp]

I havn't been able to find any news stories on it but if you type allofmp3 and russian mafia into google there are a lot of hits. This does not mean it's true, but the possibility is there.

[xm177e2]

The music business isn't a charity

You could have fooled me. The studio execs sure act like it. </sarcasm>

The music studios have already lost a massive price-fixing lawsuit (I got my rebate... did you get yours?)

Do we really owe it to thieves not to steal from them?

[Haru Hara Haruko]

but at a nickel I would easily download a few bucks worth every week- as opposed to the $ZERO I have paid for music in the last 15 years.

People used to go to great lengths to steal long distance phone service. That seems pretty quaint now, doesn't it?

The only cure for "stealing" music by strentching the bounds of fair use to the breaking point is to drop the price.

[clyde asbury]

Paying a small price per song is better, IMO, than downloading for "free" from sites like kazaa.

The price of free downloads includes viruses, adware, spyware, and a slower computer.

[Haru Hara Haruko]

Only if you are silly enough to use an adware/spyware infected client. Phex is open source. I'd trust that over any commercial product.

[SengirV]

Yeah, but no one is going to sell them at 5 cents a song. That's the fundamental problem that makes all this simply mental masturbation.

[Uncle Fud]

You haven't "paid for the same copyright over and over again" within the scenario you've described; You've purchased copies of copyrighted material you wanted to own in differing formats

Well, maybe.

One thing that is for sure true is that for thirty years the RIAA members made a lot of money out of reselling the back catalog over and over again in different formats, and that's forever a thing of the past.

I now have three complete sets of my music library backed up as pristine zeros and ones; as long as there is technology to convert that back to sound waves, I'll never be buying another copy of "Exile on Main Street" again.

[clyde asbury]

Phex is open source. I'd trust that over any commercial product.

Haven't tried Phex, thanks for the tip.

[Thoro]

Our customers are very happy with the products. Now we just need everybody to buy cars with MP3-CD players!

How are the MP3-CD players nowadays? Car or otherwise? Last I purchased one, which was years ago, they were extremely problematic. I still don't understand why, but they were.

[Uncle Fud]

" no one is going to sell them at 5 cents a song"

That day might come, check this story to see how pirates are working to lower prices for the consumer.

[Uncle Fud]

I've used the Rio Volt (now iRiver) line of portable mp3CD players for years and love them. Great sound, great features.

Don't have an mp3CD car player, I would be more likely to go for a car receiver stereo with a line input jack so I can use my portable of choice.

[Thoro]

Only if you are silly enough to use an adware/spyware infected client. Phex is open source. I'd trust that over any commercial product.

The iTunes market is targeting the person who doesn't want to deal with all those headaches of being computer savvy. It's worth it for them to pay the dollar for the song they want to download with minimal search effort, already in the preferred sample rate, burn it and be done with it.

[Crusher138]

Try shareaza at shareaza.com

[ragnark]

agreed, 40GB iPod with a line-in or a radio transmitter is so much simpler than burning the media and trying to remember what CD each mp3 is on. Just take the little thing in your car with you, plug it in and you're good to go (I happen to like a radio transmitter because it's wireless, but the line-in does have slightly clearer sound)... I barely use CDs anymore, which is a shame since I have about 300 of 'em collecting dust since I ripped them to my hard drive :P

[Uncle Fud]

of course I would need three 40gb Pods to take it all (g)

[Niteranger68]

What's up with the 1% tax? Why does it even exist? Where does that money actually go?

[sittnick]

I am glad that that solution works fine. Our customers are not iPod types. In fact I was furious when I found out that iTunes IGNORES file names when sorting a playlist. Here we are making MP3-CD audiobooks that need the tracks played in order on everything from a DVD player to a boombox to a Rio, and Apple has to go and not make sorting on file name a possibility. We actually had to burn a special set of discs for our iTunes users.

I tried an analog transmitter hooked up to a Panasonic portable in the car. It worked, but was very fussy about the tuning. I imagine the digital models work better. I think that cars with antennas by the trunk would have real issues.

I have certainly helped our customers who use flash memory or hard drive based products use them. Having the original CD as the ultimate backup, I find, is a great convenience. No one has gone wireless (of those who call). A number just burned standard CDs from the MP3 originals.

That's what I love about MP3-CDs, they are extremely flexible.

[Haru Hara Haruko]

The iTunes market is targeting the person who doesn't want to deal with all those headaches of being computer savvy.

Any commercial DRM'ed source requires much more savvy than unprotected MP3s. Try switching computers or recovering your lost iTunes files. DRM is no user's friend.