P2P Music Downloads At All-Time Low 369
RedEaredSlider writes "According to research group NPD Group, the shuttering of Limewire's music file sharing service has led to a similar decline in the usage of such services throughout the US. The number has gone from a high of 16 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007 to just nine percent in the fourth quarter of 2010, right after Limewire shut down its file-sharing services due to a court order, when a federal judge sided with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)."
Give me good services (Score:5, Informative)
The same can be said about Steam. I currently own over 250 games on Steam and I gladly buy more, as it's easy, fast and just works. Yeah yeah, Steam might go down in 500 years, but you know what, I don't care. It's great for me now and I probably won't be playing those games then, if they even work with that generations systems. And if I really want to play some classic again, there will always be (and even increasingly) services similar to Good Old Games and console stores that sell old games cheaply and modified to work with current systems.
Those two services have come to a point where it's easier and better to buy than pirate. Now just give me the same for movies and TV and I'm set. And I wont be making any stupid comments about how music labels are ripping off hard working artists (while forgetting the artists signed that contract themself) or how some item you buy should still be working 1000 years from now, because frankly I don't care. I just want a good working service where I can throw my money and get the product quickly and easily.
And on a related note, I just bought Crysis 2, Portal 2 and Assassins Creed: Brotherhood from Steam. All great games (AssBro has amazingly fun multiplayer where everyone have targets to kill while also being someone elses target).
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Re:Give me good services (Score:4, Insightful)
This is also true... have you ever tried to properly license a song for a small product? They ask for thousands of dollars and treat you as if you're going to be making money on the project. They don't even like to call you back unless you're some super-huge corporation.
Just put in a system that allows you to pay $20 to license a song for a personal-use video, youtube, whatever and people will pay that as well. In terms of licensing where someone is using a song for some creative work they generally want to stay within the law but when the only option that someone gives them to license a song is thousands of dollars they *can't* stay within the law without emptying their wallets completely.
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This is also true... have you ever tried to properly license a song for a small product? They ask for thousands of dollars and treat you as if you're going to be making money on the project. They don't even like to call you back unless you're some super-huge corporation. (...) Just put in a system that allows you to pay $20 to license a song for a personal-use video, youtube, whatever and people will pay that as well.
Well, unless they're set up for volume with a very streamlined process it's probably not worth it. Just the fact that they can't just fire volleys of C&D letters but rather have to check it against a huge DB of licensees, who no doubt will use it in many different ways and places is complicated. Even if they demand to send all works you want to license to them for addition to their hash database even a single bit flip will bring it up as a false positive. Then people start complaining that they do have
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Find an indie artist and use different music for your youtube videos. You can still be ethical.
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Or (shocked look) make some of your own music.
But don't be surprised if some other people copy it.
What day comes after today? (Score:4, Funny)
So this [youtube.com] is all your fault!
(Backstory: Her parents paid $2000 to a couple of guys at the music industry's equivalent of a vanity publisher to pipe their kid's vocals through autotune and spend an hour doing a couple of video shoots with her and her friends. Pretty good testament to what can be done with modern technology on a shoestring budget, but also a pretty good testament to "just because you can, doesn't mean you should".)
Nothing wrong with copying. That's what remix culture is all about. The song itself may be execrable, but the explosion [youtube.com] of creativity [youtube.com] it's inspired is nothing short of awesome.
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If the music industry had a simple way to buy rights to songs, etc., people would probably even pay to use that in youtube videos they make, etc
Oooh, nice idea. Magnatune used to have such a system where you just clicked on the appropriate licence type and purchased. Of course Magnatune was obscure (though sometimes talented) bands. I don't know if they still have it because Magnatune switched to a Spotify style streaming service instead of sales, so I stopped using them, but the precedent is there.
This would genuinely be a great service and I've no doubt that it could make money if properly done. You should probably actually just write a letter
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The music industry doesn't need to buy the rights to music. Their contracts are so onerous and one sided that the bands just give them the rights to the music. Frankly, I consider that stealing.
Re:Give me good services (Score:4, Insightful)
I wish I had mod points because this is so on target.
This is how the music business survived for decades. First of all it was so very expensive to have vinyl pressers (you notice people still did bootlegs though) and then with cassettes the quality loss was so bad it was better to buy new. If you give people a product that is better and easier than using B.T. or Limewire or whatever they WILL pay for it.
All the RIAA innovates on though is how to infuriate and sue people...
Re:Give me good services (Score:4, Informative)
Only downside is that Spotify isn't available in the US. Yes, you can proxy, but it takes gymnastics to get it working on your Android or iPhone, especially if you want a subscription.
The only analog of that in the US would be Rhapsody and the Zune Marketplace. After my effort in trying to cancel Rhapsody service (when URGE [1] moved to them), I would hesitate on recommending them.
[1]: MTV/Microsoft's URGE was one of the best subscription music services, although it had a relatively brief lifespan. It actually had decent band articles, showcased new bands and was good at recommending new bands.
Re:Give me good services (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Give me good services (Score:4, Informative)
pandora works in the us. Paid version $36 a year, unlimited listening, basically it's spotify. Outside the US, use spotify. Problem solved.
Re:Give me good services (Score:5, Informative)
"Outside the US, use spotify"
And for those of us outside Europe AND the US (such as Canada, although I'm sure other countries are in the same boat) NEITHER option works. However GrooveShark is a pretty good substitute I find..
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Since I'm too lazy to research it myself. It seems steam is a drm service? a phoning home one?
So if I buy portal 2 from steam that means its only mine for as long as I have a net connection, steam is online and my windows installation is not touched? Do I risk losing hundreds of dollars if I reinstall Windows or something?
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Price is also a factor. Charge $60 for a game on Steam and people will still pirate it simply because it's worth their time to do so. But if Dragon Age 3 came out as a digital download only for $10 there'd be little point to pirate it. Of course that doesn't happen because the publisher sets the digital price to be the same as the boxed copies in stores.
At some point developers will start to do the math and see that they can drastically increase profits by going low price on digital only. I WOULD say that t
In related news... (Score:3)
Editors, can we get a story about the $75 trillion P2P lawsuit soon plz?
Re:In related news... (Score:5, Funny)
Editors, can we get a story about the $75 trillion P2P lawsuit soon plz?
No.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/03/23/1930238/Limewire-Being-Sued-For-75-Trillion [slashdot.org]
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This one?
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/03/23/1930238/Limewire-Being-Sued-For-75-Trillion [slashdot.org]
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Like yesterday's?
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/03/23/1930238/Limewire-Being-Sued-For-75-Trillion [slashdot.org]
Please don't encourage dupes...
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Why? Storage space is cheap these days. ;)
missed it, my bad n/t (Score:2)
gsh
Re:In related news... (Score:5, Funny)
I know, it's soooo time for a dupe. The editors have gotten really sloppy about it, nothing like in the good old days.
Crappy Music (Score:5, Insightful)
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Pretty much this.
It simply is this way. Torrents and P2P went up whenever new people found out about it and started downloading their favorite songs. But, ya know, once you have a song on your HD, you don't need to download it again. And sooner or later they have everything they want and their use of P2P dwindles to a fraction of what it was before, simply because, well, how much music does actually appear every year that you'd even remotely want? I'm no mainstream listener and what I want I can often get o
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I was going to say "You're right," but it turns out there has been a decline:
"The average number of music files downloaded from P2P networks also declined from 35 tracks per person in Q4 2007 to just 18 tracks in Q4 2010, although some downloaded just one or two tracks, while others took hundreds. NPD estimates there were 16 million P2P users downloading music in Q4 2010, which is 12 million fewer than in Q4 2007."
Personally I still download tons of music..... from youtube (and with video) that I store on m
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FIXED : I was going to say [You're wrong] but it turns out there has been a decline, so you are correct. People are showing less interest in obtaining music via P2P. Probably ripping it directly from websites like youtube or hulu
I like the modern music, but then I like electronica in general. The "autotuned" sound works for me, along with the notes that sound like they were made with a Super Nintendo. But I figure it's only a matter of time until there's a "backlash" and music swings back to acoust
Re:Crappy Music (Score:4, Funny)
I like the modern music
I thought I was brave taking an anti-piracy stance on Slashdot. But daring to say that modern music isn't crap? You're going to really upset people now!
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Stayin aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive!
And... (Score:5, Insightful)
Music sales suddenly skyrocket right? Right?? Oh, they're still abysmal. Never mind then.
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And there were also gained sales for increased free marketing. It wasn't a one sided deal, there was plenty of benefit for the music industry.
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Agreed. I bought more music because I was able to "sample" free downloads. If I didn't like it, I deleted it. If I liked it, I deleted it, bought the album and ripped it to my favorite format.
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In other news, the RIAA published a press release today requesting tighter anti-P2P laws because P2P music sharing is on the rise and their profit margins may take an infinitesimal hit next quarter. I'm not even putting a sarcasm tag on this; you watch, it'll happen.
If it's at an all-time low, then that means it must be rising, right now. After all, 12:02pm is a time...
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Music sales suddenly skyrocket right? Right?? Oh, they're still abysmal. Never mind then.
You're using logic. This is politics, logic is not accepted.
The point of the anti-P2P pro-DRM campaign is so that the old distributors can maintain control over the distribution channel. It has nothing to do with piracy. It has to do with demonizing P2P as an alternative distribution channel for artists. You mustn't put your own music on the Pirate Bay, even if that means you'll sell more concert tickets, because they're evil! Evil people who are stealing from you, the artist! We must stop them. Also, we mu
Correction (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a decline in music downloads that NPD Group is able to track.
Think about that one for a second.
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Yeah, it is a pretty stupid non-story. Basically saying that after a network shut down, which amounted to x number of downloads they were able to track, they saw a fall of x downloads. OMGWTFBBQ shutting down a network removes the downloads occuring on it! Who would've thought.
In other news, pirates are moving to other less trackable networks or methods.
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In other news, pirates are moving to other less trackable networks or methods.
Dude.
First rule.
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They're trading music in Fight Club? Ouch, that's some hard core dedication to sharing.
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Yeah, it is a pretty stupid non-story. Basically saying that after a network shut down, which amounted to x number of downloads they were able to track, they saw a fall of x downloads. OMGWTFBBQ shutting down a network removes the downloads occuring on it! Who would've thought.
In other news, pirates are moving to other less trackable networks or methods.
In other news: New version of Peerblock released. RIAA reports that piracy has dropped to 1%.
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Good point. It is just a decline in what they are able to track, because one of the services they were tracking no longer allows for downloads.
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shitty statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
The number has gone from a high of 16 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007 to just nine percent in the fourth quarter of 2010
16% of what? the article doesn't mention.
16% of the population? 16% of what it used to be?
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You should never include a scale when you're referencing numbers in a news article, otherwise the statistics might become meaningful.
Re:shitty statistics (Score:5, Funny)
The number has gone from a high of 16% in the fourth quarter of 2007 to just $9,000 in the fourth quarter of 2010. This has been going down at a rate of 34W per day, and it can be expected to be down to 18 acres by the end of 2011. Analysts believe, however, that new P2P technology could see that number jump back up by 12kg before settling at 64 degrees Fahrenheit.
Was shutting down Limewire the real cause? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Was shutting down Limewire the real cause? (Score:4, Insightful)
This. Streaming services make it a lot easier to hear the music you want whenever you want without having to download OR pay for it. I'm partial to Grooveshark myself, but Pandora's pretty good too.
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Or are services like Pandora, Spotify, and even iTunes giving the consumers what they want at a price they want and thus helping to drive pirating down?
I believe that YouTube is the largest service that people go to for music now. And if my wife is any indication, this is accurate. She used to harass me to find this-or-that on P2P. Now she just goes on YouTube, to the extent that I've made sure she can output to the house stereo.
All time low? (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean lower than they were in, say, 1776?
How about the fact.... (Score:2)
That most music right now utterly sucks?
Honestly I have not bought a song off of itunes for 3 months now because 90% of it is crap and the other 10% is uninteresting.. Lately I have been looking for illegal remixes and mashups. Those guys have some real talent...
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So let me get this straight. You say that 100% of music is crap or uninteresting, yet you claim that some other non-musician can take the crap, "remix it," and suddenly turn it into good music? (If they were musicians, they would create their own original music)
I agree with you about modern music, which is basically the equivalent of paint-by-numbers by sound engineers, but your point is absurd.
Re:How about the fact.... (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't really want original music. You want music that sounds like something else you like.
There is no reason why a mix of two songs that suck can't be fantastic. I don't like to eat cabbage or lactobacillus but I love sauerkraut. "Fusion cuisine" is usually an excuse for some stupid food concept that is being pushed on you but once in a while it results in nirvana, like the potato, pesto, and garlic pizza at Escape from NY. Potato on a pizza sounds stupid until you eat it. (Of course, the stuff is also a poster child for thisiswhyyourefat...)
Anyway I'm not into Jay-Z and the number of Beatles songs I think are worth a crap can be counted on one hand but DJ Danger Mouse's Grey Album is one of the best things I've ever heard. So basically I think you are being ridiculous.
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There is no reason why a mix of two songs that suck can't be fantastic
Try mixing "Baby, baby, baby" and "Friday", then get back to me on that... Bieber and Black together at last!
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He is not saying that 100% of music is crap or uninteresting. He is saying that most music right now utterly suck and I agree with him in the sense that most mainstream music, the current "trends" of music, sucks and is uninteresting.
I find it interesting that you say that somebody who takes music samples and remix it is a non-musician, especially since that statement is utter bullshit. Do you like Daft Punk? Well, if you do I have a newsflash for you: by your definition, they're not real musicians! Ohgawd!
Re:How about the fact.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I have to disagree about "modern music" being crap.
The difference is that in the past, good bands got the spotlight and were heavily promoted.
These days, what gets the promotion dollars are cookie cutter bands who wouldn't even be able to croak out anything near a melody if it wasn't for Antares's Auto-Tune product. Why do they get promoed? Because it is cheaper to hype some naiive and malleable stars for a few years, then find some new meat when the news stories about their rehab and DUI misadventures hit the press.
There is still good music being made. However, you won't be finding it on the radio (unless you happen to have an independent station). It will be through services like Pandora, last.fm, and other places, not to mention Web forums and word of mouth that one finds bands that don't suck.
Trust me; there are a lot of new bands that are worth the ear; they just don't have the huge money behind them that Justin Beiber and Ke$ha do.
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What makes you think things were so different in previous decades? Even the Beatles, early in their career, were cookie-cutter. You can go back to the 80s to bands like New Kids on the Block (*shudder*).
There's always been trash on the radio, mixed in with a few gems. If you never find a song you like then you just have grown old and have a selective memory.
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How's it absurd?
All music is, essentially, the stringing and mixing together of sound waves. Usually of frequencies that we consider "going well together". It's by no means unheard of that someone takes a song, takes a few snippets out of it, mixes it with other snippets, a new base line and creates some other, similar but "better sounding" sound waves.
The music of the 90s was full of it. 99% garbage, but there were some true talents as well. I'll never forget how the Saints used Annie Lennox as an instrume
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Re:How about the fact.... (Score:5, Insightful)
(If they were musicians, they would create their own original music)
That's not really true though. For starters, the line between "original" and "unoriginal" music isn't very clear. Which of these groups is creating original music?
- The Boston Symphony Orchestra playing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with a fantastic new interpretation
- A group playing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on kazoos
- A disco group who took Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and rewrote it with a dance beat
- A DJ who took the BSO's recording of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and made a great dance beat with it
- An MC who took the DJ's great dance beat and busted some rhymes to it.
- A folk singer who goes to some obscure area of Hungary, learns a popular folk song from that area, translates the lyrics, and records and popularizes it in the US
- A second folk singer who adds 10 new verses to that same folk song
All of them took a musical legacy, added some twists or nuances to it, and made something new. But in the RIAA's worldview, the DJ, MC, and second folk singer did something thoroughly horrible.
Re:How about the fact.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Right now? Mainstream music has utterly sucked since the late 90s. If you want some quality music over P2P, check out bt.etree.org.
Personally, my downloading is at an all time low because I have everything I want. I pass up free leech at the private trackers I'm on, simply because I wouldn't have the time to use it anyway.
Thank Amazon (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know about others, but since Amazon started selling unencrypted MP3s, I've stopped turning to illegal sources for music.
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Pretty much. I've bought more music in the past 6 months than I have in probably the last decade. Cheap, easy, safe, and legal.
However, there's probably more sneakernet trading going on than ever before. If you've got 8 gigs of music on a USB stick, it's really trivial to plug it into your buddies computer and copy the whole thing over. You know the quality is good and there's no risk of getting sued.
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What would Barney do? (Score:2)
Do you know why they're down? (Score:2)
I used to download music because it was more convenient than driving to the store and let me sample the music before deciding if I even wanted it. Then companies started offering digital downloads, but most of it was DRM-encumbered so I still stayed away. However, after most stores went DRM-free there was no reason not to use them. Sure I could still get it for free somewhere else, but the music stores made it q
Why download music.... (Score:2)
And it means, what, exactly? (Score:2)
Once something goes underground, it's increasingly difficult to get reliable numbers because people are trying not to be seen doing it. Obviously some of them are succeeding.
If you believe this... (Score:2)
If you believe this, you qualify for a job at the Libyan Ministry of Information ! I hear they pay well !
Have music sales gone up? (Score:2)
If ever there was a time when might be shown a connection between illegal downloads and sales, this might be it. Has there been an increase in legitimate sales? I'm guessing not. I suspect that as other, legal means of collecting music online have come about, people are simply abandoning the illegal means.
People just want what they want. They aren't "criminal minds" and certainly never needed to be attacked with lawsuits. They just want what they want. When they have an affordable and legal way to get
conclusion does not follow from facts presented (Score:2)
16% of what? (Score:3)
How do they measure "percent" of use?
And maybe... (Score:2)
Maybe it's just because MUSIC SUCKS these days. You can't give it away.
And get off my lawn!
Because new music sucks? (Score:2)
Shocking... NOT! (Score:2)
This makes perfect sense. My casual observations note that music piracy has been decreasing steadily for years. There is far less reason reason to pirate any longer. Companies are selling music online, cheaper, more easily, without lock-down, and without DRM -- just like people were asking for.
Similarly, anime piracy is down now that you can watch anime online legally. It was pirated most heavily when a series came out in Japan and took 10 years before it was subtitled and released in the US and Europe.
Oh good... (Score:3, Funny)
I guess we'll be seeing that huge uptick in music sales anytime now...
*holds breath*
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Meh, most people I know use blogs (Score:2)
What's to download? (Score:2)
Still miss one feature (Score:5, Informative)
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There's no way this number is true. I bet it was paid for by the RIAA's lawyers so they can say, "See! The lawsuits are working!!!"
Re:I smell RIAA trolls today... (Score:4, Insightful)
There's no way this number is true. I bet it was paid for by the RIAA's lawyers so they can say, "See! The lawsuits are working!!!"
That or they're just measuring it wrong because they're idiots. The article is highly unclear -- 16% of what? If people start using sneakernet and private trackers that they don't have access to measure, did the amount of sharing go down? Or did it go up because downloading 1TB of music from a private tracker once and then passing it around a school or an office on an external hard drive is way more efficient than sucking it through the straw of US broadband a thousand different times?
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I guess just like me, every audiophile has already downloaded every discography of every band he ever liked.
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It's more likely that this article is a troll, and reveals that limewire represents 7% of P2P music sharing THAT THEY KNOW ABOUT.
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I believe it.
First, I've already got a large collection of songs downloaded to fill my mp3 player with. Yes, some new stuff comes out, maybe I get it. But I no longer have a backlog of things to download.
Second, streaming music is available in lots of forms. I don't need to download music to bring to work; I just listen to Pandora on my cell phone.
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Re:I smell RIAA trolls today... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I smell RIAA trolls today... (Score:5, Funny)
I'd tell you a joke about audiophiles, but you wouldn't appreciate it as text instead of a 5000 kbps sound file wilth an 8000 dollar stereo.
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Don't the HD videos on YouTube have pretty good sound quality?
Personally I just buy MP3s. There are plenty of places that do them at reasonable prices. I tend to wait until albums get to £5 or below.
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I just use iTunes, honestly. Sure, the quality isn't as good as it absolutely could be, but it's leaps and bounds beyond the average mp3 I used to find in crappy malware infested software like Limewire. I've been buying all my music from there over the last few years. Early on the DRM was bothersome (especially when I wanted to listen to my music on my Linux box, though it's easy enough to get around that) but now they've removed that. I get the idea that pirating is "better" because it's free, but at thi
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I tried iTunes once, HATED the DRM. Probably fine on a Mac, but on Windows the DRM meant I had to use iTunes Media Player (DO NOT WANT), or basically have Quicktime/iTunes load in the background when I tried to play the songs with a Winamp plugin.
(I no longer use Windows, and I'm not going to use iTunes ever again. Currently waiting for a decent online movie/TV store in the UK, tho LoveFilm isn't bad and is getting better..).
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the majority are those who gladly buy CDs from their favorite artists
Yes, but we don't want to feed the RIAA in the process. Buy from the artist directly would be a grand thing. ( and yes, it does exist for many indi groups, where the real music is anyway )
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there has been an economic downturn for the last several years that seems to not be recovering or as the spin doctors like to tell it it is a "jobless recovery" so basically less & less people have the money to waste on movies & music and other trivial entertainment media, and things like beans & rice and bread are taking a higher priority than before since there is less money to spread around... i wonder how much movies, music and video people will be buying during a complete economic depression like what there was during the 1930's
Though it may seem counter-intuitive, recessions are usually a boon to the entertainment industry.. The reasoning being that people will go to movies to escape their wretched lives for a couple hours. Of course, this depends on pricing being affordable, which it is not, currently..
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