Relating to a post by
Russ Nemhauser about how it seems that everyone who's legitimately selling music online seems to unfairly limit its use:
Shouldn't I be able to buy a song from ANY vendor and play it on ANY device? Even if I have to put a password in I'm happy to do that. I've never understood why it's so important to Microsoft to proliferate the WMA format. MP3 is pretty great. In fact, I rip all my CDs as MP3s, not WMAs because virtually every portable device can play MP3 files. What's the point of pushing forward on the WMA front? Is there some kind of financial reward? If so, what kind of financial reward could possibly show up as a blip on Microsoft's radar in the light of tens of billions of dollars in profit each and every year?
This is just very frustrating to me. This whole thing seems childish. It seems like corporate America trying to duke it out for selfish reasons. And none of these reasons relate to the customer. Here's what I feel the consumers' wish is, and please - I welcome any corrections and/or feedback on this.
I agree. I don't buy music online anymore for this reason. (I should mention that I have a massive collection of CDs that I've purchased over the years and have ripped for my own use on my MP3 players and PCs.)
I received a cool
iClick swurv5 flash MP3 player as a gift from a company and it came with a card for 5 free songs from
MSN Music. Imagine my annoyance when the songs I picked from the MSN online store couldn't be played on the player because they were WMA protected. The player could play WMA files, but not if they have any kind of protection. I was licensed to be able to play them, but I couldn't. I got around this by burning it to CD and then re-ripping it off CD as unprotected MP3.
This is not a solution that anyone should have to go through to legally play content they've purchased. In fact, this is not a solution that the majority of users would even consider trying - I'm sure most would simply give up and go get their music through something easier... such as the file sharing networks!
The online stores have the right price point as far as I'm concerned, but they're killing themselves off if they think that this kind of draconian licensing and incompatibility issues are going to drive people to their storefronts. If they make it easier for me to purchase and use the music at the current price, I'll do it. But if I have any whiff of a technical issue with the content I get from them... such as not being able to play it on ANY of my many devices I may have, you can forget me as a customer, and I'll advise any of my family and friends of the same.
If businesses make it more difficult for me to play my music on my devices, then quite simply, I will not play with them.
Posted
Sep 26 2005, 12:25 AM
by
Keith Reid