dimanche, mai 29, 2005 After speaking with that CEO, I decided to give the available downloading websites a try - this, after spending $60 buying FFH's "Still the Cross", Caedmon's Call's "Share The Well", and Rob Thomas's "...Something to Be".After browsing through the selection at soundbuzz.com.sg , I was a mixture of impressed and let down. Pros: - Popular songs are available. - Songs are an OK-price- S$1.99 for each. Cons: - Music is downloaded in protected WMA format - this means no iPods unless you want to do the time consuming burn-and-re-rip thing. I have (so far) been unable to find something which lets you do the WMA to MP3 conversion. - Music is HUGE! The WMA file that I downloaded was good quality, but it was 6MB LARGE! Imagine the disk space needed for a couple of albums. - Only people who are on PacNet, or have credit cards can buy music. So much for students complying with legal standards. Mr Edward N. is a very convicted man - he truly believes that people should pay for the music that they download because "it's not fair." I agree with him, but definitely only in part. We chatted a little about P2P filesharing and illegal activities, and he agreed that three years ago, the excuse of "I didn't know it was illegal" was still valid, but not anymore now. Three years ago, when there were no song downloading portals such as Starhub and SoundBuzz, the excuse "I only want to buy one song" still stood. "But not anymore," he declared. The word has been out on the streets and there could be no more excuses about "I want to pay but there are no avenues online for me to buy music." I conceeded that fact to him, but when asked about television shows (something I have a personal stake in), he hedged and changed the argument. I told him that I think the battle for higher moral and legal ground in downloading music and movies has been settled, but what about television shows? There is no way I can buy them online currently, and as none of the TV network execs are currently talking to the press about a brilliant new business plan to sell these shows, I assumed that there were no plans in the pipeline to earn my money. Mr Edward N. changed the argument from a "no more excuse" argument, to a "it's just wrong" argument. I'm not sure how much I agree with this. [Bah] |
0 Comments: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
