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tech crunch article comparing music services

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Carol Haynes:
I don't buy a huge amount from them (and I do buy from other sources like MSN and iTunes too, as well as CDs). My feeling is if I buy a product from a country where the supplier is behaving legally then I don't have a problem.

Technically it is illegal for suppliers to ship region 1 DVDs to the UK, but given that an awful lot of stuff is only available in NTSC region 1 format (or is considerably cheaper in the US even taking shipping into account) I don't have any moral objection to that. Am I wrong?

The other thing is when I have used AllOfMP3 it often prompts me to go out and buy CDs by that artist (including hard copies of the downloads I have made). There is no way iTunes or MSN encourage me to go out and buy CDs of downloads at their prices - and often I can buy brand new, or good second hand, CDs considerably cheaper than the download services prices. I know I am probably unusual in this but I find AllOfMP3 has actually got me to part with more cash that does provide royalties to the artist, and as far as I know AllOfMP3 complies with licensing laws in Russia, so if the artists don't get any royalties it is not their fault or my fault but the Russian authorities'.

nudone:
my only question and interest is why someone would use a service that doesn't pay the artists that they are making money out of.

why pay such a company when you can save yourself the cash and just get the same artists completely free when using a p2p file sharing program. the artist still misses out on royalties this way but you save money at the same time. the only difference is that one is 'technically' legal whilst the other is considered almost certainly illegal. under the eyes of the unfortunate artists/labels they are still being robbed whether it's a technically legal robbery or an almost certain illegal robbery.

buying region 1 dvds doesn't sound like the same sort of thing to me either as the royalties from that sale will be going to the artists - providing the dvd came from a country that respected the rights of artists.

don't get me wrong. i'm not mr.clean. i've copied, downloaded, video taped, borrowed and photocopied things that i should have payed for. but i also make a point of paying those i respect and it doesn't look like 'allofmp3' share the same opinion. i may as well be sending the money to someone at the other end of a p2p program like emule because they've told me that they have paid for the music they are sharing when they bought the CD from their local record shop.

tsaint:
Interview with allofmp3 content manager at http://www.museekster.com/allofmp3interview.htm

Museekster: Are artists compensated for the downloads and how does this work in Russia?

Allofmp3: We pay monthly deductions to ROMS. The distribution of the royalties to the authors fully depends on ROMS. ROMS (as well as RAO) distributes the royalties based on sales amount.

Sounds like he's either lying/misinformed or royalties are distributed, in which case they wouldn't seem to be a problem.

Carol Haynes:
Interesting link in that article is http://www.museekster.com/allofmp3info.htm and following on from that http://www.museekster.com/allofmp3faq.htm#Is%20using%20Allofmp3%20legal?

allen:
Why not say they're leaving it out because their music:cr*p ratio is so high compared to the others?
-tsaint (April 08, 2006, 08:47 AM)
--- End quote ---

I wouldn't quite phrase it that way.  I'd just say their mainstream to obscure taste ratio is incredibly low.

They have an incredibly high quality database, it just happens to be a very diverse database -- much of which you're not likely to enjoy.  Not so much because it's crap but because it's diversity.  I love their bluegrass, new age and electronic selection (and some pop-rock), but find a lot of their stuff to be, to me, abysmal -- that isn't to say it's bad.  For me to say it's bad would be downplaying Hirudin's taste in music.

That's the thing about a service that dares to grab up such a varying selection of music from such diverse genre's -- you end up with stuff everybody hates as much as they enjoy the stuff they love.  Most music services are too mainstream to have anything as "good" or as "bad" as emusic.

My 2 cents, anyway.

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