Guest Jaimz Posted August 13, 2002 Share Posted August 13, 2002 say someone created a web site where you could listen to full length psytrance tracks, but in real audio format. you couldn't download them [not without a lot of hassle, for anyone whose tried downloading ra streams before], but you could listen to them every time you were online. say the site then also wanted to charge you to listen to these files, a certain small amount which you'd pay once and then you could listen to that file as many times as you liked. say also all this was done with the agreement of the record labels involved and most of the money you were paying went to the record label and artist. how much, per track, in US dollars, would you be willing to pay? keep in mind these streams are not in the quality of mp3, but still good enough to get a pretty good feel of how the songs sound. if you would not be willing to pay for this, why not? please keep answers short and avoid arguments on this thread - create your own damn thread if you want to debate something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jaimz Posted August 13, 2002 Share Posted August 13, 2002 oh, perhaps i should have said 'in US cents'. personally i think something along the lines of 10 US cents per track would be decent. this is because of the low quality, and inability to conveniently download. this would mean that for less than a dollar US you could 'sample' and entire album. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest phaeton Posted August 13, 2002 Share Posted August 13, 2002 first of all, i've never had any problems with downloading .ra streams .. it usually doesn't take more than a minute to find the location of the entire file ... secondly, i would not be willing to pay for this because i think real audio quality sucks balls; it has happened to me so often that i thought something sounded very promising in .ra format and later turned out to be utter crap ... i know this probably sounds very odd, but for me real audio quality is often like a lo-fi way of listening to music while stoned, i.e. all the cool spacy effects are put in the foreground and pretty much anything will sound like it could've been great in full quality ... but you won't notice how bad the production might be or anything else that can be disturbing because of the limited frequency range .. i think it really is a crap idea, sorry, but i simply am not going to pay for prelistening to music in a lofi quality format that's inferior to even badly encoded mp3's .. i however probably would pay for downloading 320 kbps mp3's so maybe that's another idea you can think of Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ciotera Posted August 13, 2002 Share Posted August 13, 2002 I agree.. the price range would be in cents rather than dollars.. however i see two major problems with this business model (that is what this is, isn't it? this brings me back to my internet-startup days.. puts a smile on my face 1. isn't this already done on psyshop, saikosounds, and individual artists' websites for free? 2. charging cents per credit card transaction is not feasible. (this is a minor objection however, you could get around this by providing the users with credit until they owe enough money so that it makes sense to charge their card.. that would work most of the time.. but it's not a bullet proof system either). i personally would not be willing to pay anything because of the item 1 above. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Basilisk Posted August 13, 2002 Share Posted August 13, 2002 no, real audio sucks. additional information - i dont think i would pay for anything less than 192kbps mp3 format files. and even then i wouldnt pay a lot. if you go to a place like www.microdots.org you can request a song you like.. similar to the concept of "available anytime you're online" although in this case its free. also with regards to most of the funds going to the label... that would have no basis in the decision because the artist is unlikely to see any of that money, however much it may be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jaimz Posted August 13, 2002 Share Posted August 13, 2002 ok, first phaeton.. your first point - when a realaudio stream is streamed from a web server [ie, via the http protocol] it is simple to find the source and then download the file. however when the stream comes from a realaudio server [ie, the pnm protocol] instead it is not actually possible to download the stream. your second point - basically no label would agree to allow a site to legally send out full quality full length tracks, so you should forget about that as an option. also mp3s as a whole should be forgotten about - the mp3 file format is too easily traded to be viable for a site such as i'm describing. thanks for your input, however. second, ciotera. your first point - psyshop, saikosounds and most artists only provide extracts of tracks - psyshop gives between 30 seconds and 1 minute, saiko usually just over 2 minutes. i've often heard people complain that the amount of time doesn't allow them to fully judge a track. my idea revolves around provided a full length track. your second point - this would be done on a credit basis, and probably in co-operation with online stores that already have a good relationship with users. basically when you place an order you add, say, $US5 to your credit and then you can use that over time until your next order. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jaimz Posted August 13, 2002 Share Posted August 13, 2002 basilisk, for your first point, see my response to phaeton re: 192k mp3s files. for your second point, what the www.microdots.org site is providing is different to what i'm suggesting. for your third point, i can guaruntee you the artists would recieve a fair portion of the money. it appears your view on how labels are run is fairly cynical. most labels are very good to their artists. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strumpling Posted August 13, 2002 Share Posted August 13, 2002 10 cents per track sounds about right, but I probably still wouldn't even do it because I don't like the quality of streaming audio - I like CD-quality Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kiph The Elephant Posted August 13, 2002 Share Posted August 13, 2002 "the mp3 file format is too easily traded to be viable for a site such as i'm describing." What about the .wma format. Doesn't it have some kind of a copy protection available for it so that you can only play the files on the computer that you downloaded them into. There's at least one Finnish site that sells these, but the music there is crap IMO and the prices are too high. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Full Lotus Posted August 13, 2002 Share Posted August 13, 2002 Chaos Unlimited have 1 minute mp3 samples, but then that's just not enough for the whingers either.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Matta Posted August 13, 2002 Share Posted August 13, 2002 I wouldn't. Sounds like too much of a hassle. But that's just me. Chaosexistence has full track previews in poor quality. Jaimz, I appreciate the meaning of your effort very much. I hope it leads somewhere fruitful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khogg Posted August 13, 2002 Share Posted August 13, 2002 Wouldn't this idea be easier based on a subscription fee per month? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Basilisk Posted August 13, 2002 Share Posted August 13, 2002 -shrug- i just disagree then, no explanation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest snusnu Posted August 13, 2002 Share Posted August 13, 2002 ah yes, IMO, kogg has a point there. Say 5 bucks a moth to listen to all you like, that would be more acceptable terms IMO. But IMHO you'll ALWAYS be confronted to the usual internet saying "why pay for something you could get for free?"... you could always get higher quality free MP3s from traders on whatever new p2p program will be in use. To get economical about it, you may not have a market there: people with money to spend on psy will go for original CDs they eventually pre-listen to in shops and people who don't want to spend a lot of money will eventually not spend any at all and get them for free on p2p programs... Well, I don't want to put you down but it just sounds too risky for a venture IMHO... and don't expect making money off psy, noone does!! Maybe aply this to pop music. Hey wait, Bertelsman (sp?) did this with Napster and that didn't work at ALL!! SMI²LE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest idoru Posted August 13, 2002 Share Posted August 13, 2002 i wouldnt pay for this at all. i really dont see the point. real audio is crap. i can listen to streaming music whenever...for free. whats the advantage here? only that you can pick your own music. but who wants to sit there and choose one song at a time? it seems a site like this is only good for prviewing before you buy a cd....not really usefull for listening for pleasure. there are easier and free ways of doing that. did i mention real audio is crap? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest r2d2 Posted August 13, 2002 Share Posted August 13, 2002 Well I don't even like mp3's let alone RA. There's no way I would pay for it. CD or vinyl are my cup of tea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest dam10n Posted August 14, 2002 Share Posted August 14, 2002 The idea around here recently about a paid-for P2P network would suit better I think - formats need not be in .mp3 - and labels can choose to make their stuff available, the profits from the file share subscriptions get divvied up so that if Fly Agaric gets more downloads than California Sunshine, a higher proportion of the revenue goes to twisted... not that this idea is without flaw, but real audio can't do psy justice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Psyaholic Posted August 15, 2002 Share Posted August 15, 2002 i dont think you have the market to do big buisness. That means the site wouldent last long. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest snusnu Posted August 15, 2002 Share Posted August 15, 2002 dam10n: Bertelsman already did this with commercial music!! They bought Napster and basically made a new format and traded only tracks from artists that agreed and labels got a part... and when is the last time you heard about Napster? Like it said, this didn't work at all!! SMI²LE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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