mp3

Medialoper’s DRM-Free Holiday Shopping Guide

December 1, 2008 by Kirk Biglione

This may surprise some of you, but, DRM has been very good for Medialoper. While it’s true that the whole ‘Loper team is generally opposed to all things DRM, it just so happens that a huge segment of new readers arrive at Medialoper each day after searching Google for solutions to various DRM related problems. The sad truth is, DRM is what brought many of you to Medialoper in the first place.

While our DRM related search traffic is mostly constant throughout the year, we see a surge in traffic around the holidays. That surge peaks on Christmas day as consumers desperately search for ways break the shackles on various DRM crippled holiday gifts.

While it’s great that new readers are discovering Medialoper, we’d be happier if consumers weren’t being suckered into the DRM shell game that restricts fair use and offers no value in return.

And so, in the spirit of the holiday season, and despite our best interests, we’re happy to present Medialoper’s first annual DRM-free Holiday Shopping guide.

The Sad State of Legal DRM-Free Music Services

March 27, 2008 by Kirk Biglione

Just six months after the launch of its mp3 music service, Amazon has emerged as the number two digital music retailer. While Apple still has a huge lead, that lead seems to be dwindling quickly.

The major labels may see this as some form of progress in their efforts to break Apple’s perceived monopoly in the digital music market, but the truth is they are very likely creating a new problem for their industry.

Despite the fact that the majors have begun licensing the rights to distribute DRM-free tracks to multiple retailers, Amazon seems to be the only company that has a clue about building a successful online marketplace. As a result, Amazon could quickly become something of a de facto monopoly for legal mp3 downloads. That’s astounding when you consider that the marketplace for unprotected music downloads should be wide open and highly competitive.

The formula for building a successful digital music marketplace seems relatively easy. Consumers want access to a wide selection of reasonably priced DRM-free music, presented in a well organized marketplace that supports all computing platforms. Retailers who expect to compete should offer decent search and discovery capabilities, and maybe even a few social features. This is 2008, after all.

How Amazon’s MP3 Store Will Challenge iTunes, and Why Steve Jobs Doesn’t Care

September 27, 2007 by Kirk Biglione

This week the long anticipated Amazon digital music store finally launched. Unlike recent efforts from the likes of Wal-Mart, Amazon’s DRM-free store could pose a substantial long-term challenge to iTunes. While that may sound like bad news for iTunes, it could prove to be a good thing for Apple.

Here’s why I think Amazon will pose a serious challenge to the iTunes music store:

My Afternoon in Wal-Mart’s MP3 Download Hell

August 22, 2007 by Kirk Biglione

Wal-Mart jumped into the DRM-free pool with a big slash yesterday, as the retailer began selling high quality MP3s from major labels, at a price that undercuts iTunes.

The music industry is finally coming around to the realization that the only way to break Apple’s lock on the digital music market is to offer DRM-free music through a variety of online services. The thinking seems to be that the major labels can finally stop the iTunes juggernaut by flooding the market with affordable, high-quality, iPod compatible music. While the plan sounds good in theory, it remains to be seen whether it will actually work. If the Wal-Mart music store is any indication of things to come, the labels might want to prepare for the worst.

I was so intrigued by the possibility of buying unencrypted, cross-platform compatible music, from Wal-Mart that I decided to give the service a try. What follows is the sad and painful story of how I spent most of an afternoon trying to download one 94 cent song:

5 Ways To Improve eMusic

July 17, 2007 by Jim Connelly

It’s no secret that our favorite music download service at ‘Loper HQ isn’t iTunes, but eMusic. Kirk discussed his reasons last year, and mine are pretty much the same: the wide variety of music, the great pricing, and the fact that I can do whatever I want with the music I’ve downloaded. No damn dirty DRM.

I’m not going to address the breadth and depth of the music itself, but rather the user experience. And to do that, I should very quickly explain how I use eMusic. It’s pretty simple actually: I pay $14.99 per month for 65 downloads (it’s a legacy plan), and every week, I login, go through the new music for that week, and save the things in which I’m interested in my “Saved For Later” page.

That way I don’t use up my downloads at the beginning of the month, and have to wait because something as awesome as The Hold Steady Live At Lollapalooza comes out the day after I used them up. (Of course, I could get a booster pack if that happens, but that’s not maximizing my music dollar.)

After doing it this way for the past couple of years, I’ve noticed some ways that eMusic could improve its user experience. Five ways, as it turns out, and here they are:

Why an Amazon DRM-Free Music Store Would Be a Game-Changer

April 24, 2007 by Jim Connelly

There are stories everywhere about Amazon launching a music store, as soon as next month, that would feature unprotected downloadable music.

If true, and we should point out that the stories about Amazon launching a music download service have been around for over a year now, it would be the biggest thing in digital music since the iPod, and maybe even more important than iTunes. It would also make Kirk seem scarily prescient, as he predicted this exact thing back in January.

6 Books You Should Read Right Now If You Wanna Get Some Insight Into This Whole “New Media” Thingy

August 7, 2006 by Jim Connelly

Wanna know the philsophical underpinnings of some of our posts here at Medialoper? (I’ll pretend you said “yes.”) The following books have helped me work out some of the concepts that infuse nearly everything that I write about what we are calling the “new media.”

Here they are, alphabetical by author:

That’s What I Like: eMusic

April 28, 2006 by Kirk Biglione

At the risk of sounding like an old timer I’m going to tell you some Internet trivia that you might find hard to believe: iTunes was not the first online music service to sell downloadable songs for 99 cents. Back in 1998 a site called Good Noise started selling a small catalog of songs for just under a dollar. The iPod hadn’t even been born yet. In fact, Apple had just barely launched the iMac product line. It was a different world back then.

Good Noise eventually became eMusic and dropped the per song pricing in favor of a subscription model. While the structure of eMusic’s subscription pricing has changed over the years, it is still arguably the best digital music service around.

I’ve been a paying eMusic subscriber for many years, and here’s why:

Why Google Music Won’t Matter

April 5, 2006 by Kirk Biglione

Wall Street is buzzing again with rumors that Google will soon launch a digital music service to rival iTunes. While a showdown between Apple and Google would be the Wall Street equivalent of Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla, analysts seem to be so caught up in their visions of “enhanced revenue streams” and $500 share prices, that they’ve missed one essential point. Google Music just won’t matter much. Here’s why:

The Prism DuroSport 6000 – Worst Digital Audio Player Ever!

April 1, 2006 by Medialoper Review Labs

When we built the Medialoper Review Labs, we had great hopes that our first major product review would be something special, like a sneak peak of a 6th generation iPod or maybe a preview of an Origami UMPC.

Neither Apple nor Microsoft responded to any of the emails we’ve sent requesting review units. Instead, the subject of our first review is the latest digital audio player from the little known DuroSport Electronics Company. You’ve probably never heard of DuroSport – we certainly hadn’t. The company contacted us earlier this year to offer us an exclusive review of their newest mp3 player.

At first, we weren’t interested in reviewing a generic media player from an unknown company—that was before the company’s persistent marketing rep dropped hints that the player in question would be licensed to a well-known Internet company as the audio player associated with a new online music service to be launched later this year. The only thing we know is that the “well-known” company’s name “begins with an A and ends with .com”. Whether this is a legitimate claim or a desperate attempt to obtain media coverage for yet another mp3 player, we were intrigued enough to evaluate the new Prism DuroSport 6000.

Regardless of whether or not the new Prism DuroSport is part of a new online music store launch, we’re certain DuroSport will be a household name in no time – but not necessarily for the right reasons.