Abrazo said:

No - I haven't bought any downloads - this is from posts at NPGMC from users who bought the files and then were unable to copy the files to their WMA player because it violated the license. I believe this was in a dialog that wmp9 displays when they attempted to transfer the file.

I can understand your frustration, but your facts are way off the mark.

A - The club is going to offer industry standard AAC or MP3 files since the DRM being used is so easy to break anyway
B - The club is not going to have a solution and instead wants Mac users to not be able to listen to this music on a real stereo or in the car.
C - The club is not going to have a solution and instead wants Mac users to violate the digital millennium copyright act to burn a CD. Even if the club wants this, it's still illegal.
D - The club is going to mirror all of the club content on iTunes store (where the single is currently the #4 selling pop song) so the needs of Macintosh and iPod owning Prince fans can be met while maintaining DRM.



There is no industry standard format, so they have chosen one that gives them the best security and compression ratio.

Yes, they should think about Mac users, but they are only 3% of the home computer market. Its hardly a priority for a lot of businesses.

Sure Ipod is doing well, but outside of the US, its still along way behind other players in sales. and many of those other players accept WMA.

I don't think NPGMC should bend for Ipod. Its not even the best player on the market, by a long way.

NPGMC aren't asking anyone to break the law. they are protecting their property. They are simply more interested in catering for the masses, rather than a 3% minority.

The real question is why will Ipod not allow its users to listen to the WMA format as well? It seems they are taking the typical stubborn "anti everything mircrosoft" approach. If they are not careful, the ipod will go the way of the mac. An overpriced, poorly made niche product for a tiny minority of die hards.
[This message was edited Tue Apr 13 4:05:53 2004 by SquirrelMeat]

Remember: it is not only a burn-cd problem, or ipod.
Windows media player DO NOT WORK on many mac osx computer, and microsoft DO NOT WHY.


f.

SquirrelMeat said:

Um - perhaps before you accuse me of not having my facts straight, you should check yours.

- AAC is in fact an industry standard. WMA is not. Here - try this - go to the International Standards Organization store

http://www.iso.org/iso/en...store.html

Search for AAC and discover that it is, in fact, an international standard. Then search again - this tme for WMA and discover that it is, in fact, NOT a standard, but rather a proprietary format. The differerence between the two is the very reason for the problems - being a proprietary format, Microsoft controls if or how well WMA is supported on non-windows systems. And the result is poor if you don't have windows. AAC, as an industry standard, on the other hand works equally well on Mac, Windows, Linux because anyone can implement the standard.

Do some more searching the web and discover that AAC was chosen over WMA as the standard for DVD-Audio because it "sounded much better than the others".

So not only is it an ISO standard, it is also the DVD-Audio standard because it in fact has the best compression.
[This message was edited Tue Apr 13 8:18:58 2004 by alandail]

alandail said:

I think you are confusiing International Organsisational standardisation, and Industry standards. The ISO is not compulsory. Industry standards is a loose term based around the main players/formats in any given marketplace.

To give you an example. MP3. Not registered with ISO either. Are you saying its not an industry standard?

There has been some new rules made this week, which are recommending AAC as the audio standard for DVD-Audio ONLY. NOT audio devices. Its also recommends the Microsoft Video file format. Does that mean that we should shutdown quicktime?

All I'm getting at is that we shouldn't be asking e-tailers to change there formats to suit ONE audio player, especially when that manuracturer decided to ignore one of the top four file formats (and fastest growing) available in the market.

I for one don't like the idea of WMA's taking over, even though the compression rate is excellent. I don't think its good to have microsoft muscle in on something yet again. And the licence things is a pain. But thats the price we pay for years of illegal downloading.

However, Apple are going about it totally the wrong way. They are making their usual mistake of trying to become a little bit more exclusive and different. It works for a while, then everyone begins to move to other, easier, cheaper and often better options in the market.

A good example of their arrogance is firewire. Promoted as the industry standard (By Apple), it let USB in ther back door with a much faster cable. As a result, Apple are now having to include USB on everything, and USB is moving onto all the products that Firewire has a stanglehold on.

I fear for Quicktime too. Apples insistance on not sharing easily has let Windows Media player stream past, even though quicktime is a far superior format.

If Ipod was to include WMA as a format, it can only help their sales. Thats where they are going wrong.

Better players, like the Archos and the Iriver will steal the show. they can show video, have much bigger drives, and you can change the battery.

Of course this is only an opinion, but I believe it is based on some pretty sound judgements.

Squirrel meat said:
And the licence things is a pain. But thats the price we pay for years of illegal downloading.


That's totally wrong. The music industry has been wanting to control the way music consumers listen to music and use the internet since long before the "illegal downloading". What you see now at NPGMC - DRM problems and licenses to listen to music you PAID for - is exactly what the industry - including Prince- has been wanting to do all along. It has NOTHING to do with the "illegal downloading".


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[This message was edited Thu Apr 15 5:24:24 2004 by Abrazo]

Abrazo said:

Rubbish. If we'd paid, they would not be trying such draconian methods now. If it had nothing to do with illegal downloads, they why the need for a licence system? Simple Q? One leads to the other.

What else is happening? Cd Sales down? CDR sales up? Wierd. Lucky there is not connection!