Well, thank f@ck for that MP3s available free and legal

[Jon]

Vivendi Universal, the world's biggest music group, has signed a deal to make its music catalogue available on a free legal downloads service.

See the article;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5294842.stm

I would be interested in peoples thoughts on this.

 

[vivaissy]

can you transfer the music from your computer to another device?

 

[Jon]

can you transfer the music from your computer to another device?

Good point; you mean like WMA files with Digital rights management I guess, I would have thought you would have been able too , but the article does not mention it. Hmmm..

 

[vivaissy]

that was the problem with napster. at first i thought 'ace! free music!' and downloaded about 40gb worth of stuff, then found i could only play it on my computer and when my offer finished i couldnt play the tracks anymore! it sucks!
if this one is different then count me in!

 

[girlunafraid]

couple of points...
won't work on ipods
the reason it's free is that it's paid for by adverts, they are not sure how this is going to work yet, one proposal is that the track downloaded will be sponserd by blah-de-blah washing powder, which could be annoying.
Oh & the other thing is that it won't be available until December (at the earliest).

love

Grim

(here's a quick word from our sponsers ***soulseek***)

 

[Jon]

couple of points...
won't work on ipods
the reason it's free is that it's paid for by adverts, they are not sure how this is going to work yet, one proposal is that the track downloaded will be sponserd by blah-de-blah washing powder, which could be annoying.
Oh & the other thing is that it won't be available until December (at the earliest).

love

Grim

(here's a quick word from our sponsers ***soulseek***)

I would have thought the fact it won't work on iPods is quite a good thing as they are a lot more expensive and not as good as other MP3 players in the market + they dont play WMA drm files or wav files etc etc) . (Also Apple iPod attempt to tie you into iTunes that charges 99 cents a track, which is annoying - The newly proposed service will be free to the user. I read about the reasons it is free, and there will be user-relevant adverts on the software that you download music from based on targeted keywords of the music searcher...which can't be a bad thing really as you might actually be interested in the ads you see as it's based on what you type in to download..

As for soulseek, it's not really a commercial proposition, more of a geek-club where by users have to be savvy about how to find music/wait ages/not sure of the origin/quality/grovel to people for rare tracks.
I think this news today will (yet again) re-position the music industry to an even greater extent than ever before. mainly due to the commercial players involved.

 

[girlunafraid]

I wasn't posting that I am anti this new service, I was just replying to your Q. "I would be interested in peoples thoughts on this.".
I was just putting forward a few points, as I felt your original post wasn't giving all the facts, it probably as the details in the link you provided but who actually bothers to read links?
I've heard that the next phase in the music industry is gonna be mobile phone based but let's wait & see eh?

love

Grim
P.s. I wouldn't call GU a geek (it made me chuckle though), mind you it does make me a thicko as I haven't got the foggiest how soulseek works!
P.p.s. I doubt you'll be able to get 'rare' tracks on that new system, whenever it comes into being, though I could be wrong.

 

[vivaissy]

i use loads of services such as soulseek but it would be great to get something legal though. even if it is a bit shitty because hopefully you can guarantee quality and no viruses etc