Digital music downloads

adm_4

The obvious moans are that prices are different between countries and you can't buy from the site other than "yours". But why oh why are songs still 80p for back catalog stuff that you could buy on a 20 track budget compilation for £4?!
And my current biggest - why can't each country have the same catalog! I know CDs are released in the US and not here but then I can buy them from amazon.com. But I can't do this with downloads!
What I've noticed whilst using a certain russian site for mp3s is that I've spent FAR more on music than I've done for years! Probably £25/month month buying stuff I'd not have bought at 80p per song. Rant over...

ollyshaw

Yep, I think the best (and mostly cheapest) thing is to buy the DRM free CD. Rip to LAME mp3 and listen to YOUR music how YOU want to.

Olly

adm_4

ollyshaw wrote:

Yep, I think the best (and mostly cheapest) thing is to buy the DRM free CD. Rip to LAME mp3 and listen to YOUR music how YOU want to.

Olly

But the potential is there to make it so much more! If I could buy cheap (and good) music from someone like iTunes then I'd probably spend even more money than now. Sell the old stuff for 10p a song and the new stuff for 80p. Also if I can get the one song I want from a US only movie soundtrack then great!

Also why aren't out of print b-sides made available?! Seems that new singles go on iTunes and stay but old stuff won't!
I still like real CDs for albums but for other stuff mp3s are good...

THE_MIDDLEMAN

what about legal file sharers with a minimal charge?

napster?

does that not work out cheaper?

ollyshaw

Yeah, i agree. The music industry is too greedy. They also get confused with how the downloads equate to music sales. I know someone (no its not me!) who has about 200gb of tunes. However he does not really like music and wouldnt have been buying CD's if fileshareing was not available, for him its more of a technical challenge. But accorfing to the music industry those downloads equate to £3000 pounds of lost sales!

Olly

adm_4

THE_MIDDLEMAN wrote:

what about legal file sharers with a minimal charge?

napster?

does that not work out cheaper?

My problem here is that you are renting the music only...

superscaper

Filesharing networks should not be discussed on these forums legal or not as per rules.

Searcher

superscaper wrote:

Filesharing networks should not be discussed on these forums legal or not as per rules.

I don't think anyone actually is discussing file sharing networks
Althuough THE MIDDLEMAN referred to Napster as a FSN they don't share files anymore they sell music tracks legally.

superscaper

I never said napster was a fsn and actually neither did middleman "what about legal file sharers with a minimal charge?". I was just reminding people that we can't discuss p2p/filesharers.