Tag Archives: music

Spotify introduces MP3 purchases

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Spotify, a big player in the music industry, has now introduced MP3 purchases.

They originally had it so the software could link you to sites such as 7digital, but it now looks like they are offering direct MP3 purchases.

The new Spotify update allows you to purchase tracks which you can keep forever. They are in MP3 format so they can be placed on any MP3 player or iPod. All purchased music is stored in your music directory and can also be accessed from Spotify.

It looks like the new concept is ran in partnership with 7digital, as the EULA mentions 7digital and their logo is shown.

Looks interesting – I won’t ever use it because I’m going to keep my Spotify Premium membership going as it works seamlessly with my iPod Touch. I doubt many long term Spotify premium users will use the new feature, but it might be handy for free users. Nevertheless, it is a nice addition to Spotify.

Where can you buy music by SMS?

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It actually would be really good if more music providers allowed purchasing music by SMS. I think it’s a great idea that’s brilliant if you can’t be bothered to use credit cards (or don’t have them).

The only company that I know which offers this service seems to be 7digital but a) they are not cheap for SMS purchases of tracks (£1.50 per track is very expensive for a song – £1 is justifiable but £1.50!) and b) the £1.50 cost only covers tracks up to 99p. That means a 51p surcharge for using SMS – rip off!

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone knows any other music by SMS services, that work either in the US or the UK.

Any ideas?

I wish companies would realise the potential of this – think of all the kids who could legally be buying music by SMS without a credit card!

Virgin to attempt to kill music piracy with a brand new idea

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Virgin Media has decided to launch a brand new idea which, they think, might kill off some of the music piracy in the UK.

The new idea is supposedly going to launch sometime before Christmas, and it will mean that Virgin Media broadband users can download unlimited DRM-free music for a monthly charge to their broadband bill.

In addition, Virgin have used their brains. You would think “what a stupid idea – people will get the songs from Virgin and stick them on P2P networks”, but Virgin has agreed to aggressively police all the big P2P networks to make sure this doesn’t happen.

The deal is backed by one of the biggest music labels, Universal, and Virgin are hoping to have even more labels by launch date.

Personally, I think it could work, but only if people are willing to pay the price. If it does work, then the chances are that other ISPs will catch on and maybe we’ll be able to combat music piracy.

PRS reduces streaming music fee

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Ever thought that the streaming music you hear for free on sites like last.fm and Spotify costs? You’d be right in thinking so. Somebody has to pay a royalty for that music you don’t pay a penny for. That’s why music streaming sites have to place advertisements to fund the costs of music streaming fees.

Yesterday, the Performing Right Society altered the royalties owed on streaming music tracks. The fee for each streamed track is now 0.085p, compared to the previous 0.22p.

It is rumoured that this change has been made in order to persuade sites like Youtube and Pandora to start allowing streamed music. Youtube stopped allowing music videos in the UK earlier this year due to a failure of agreement with the PRS, so hopefully this new low cost royalty will encourage Youtube to start streaming music again.

It would be nice to see some official bands back on Youtube again. Although last.fm and Spotify are great for free music streaming, Youtube became well known for watching music videos online.

We’ll see what happens in the next few weeks – Youtube may well start allowing music again, but I personally think that it’ll take quite a lot of persuasion. Youtube is currently the 3rd most popular site on the internet (and has been for some time), so Google (the owner of Youtube) may decide that it is not worth paying music streaming fees again. Youtube doesn’t seem to have lost many visitors since it stopped streaming music videos.

Spotify – free, legal streaming music in wonderful quality! A must have!

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I recently came across Spotify – it’s a free, legal music streaming service available in many countries. It’s completely free to download and use, so go ahead and get it from www.spotify.com.

The first thing you’ll notice is that it has an interface that (I think) vaguely resembles iTunes – but thankfully, it’s much quicker and easier to use than iTunes. It’s really quick to install, and once you’ve spent 30 seconds of your time creating an account, you’re ready to start listening.

It has some distinct advantages to other free music streaming services available on the net, such as:

  • No listening limits – you can listen to each song as many times as you like. No limits like on sites like last.fm.
  • Really high quality – some sites have noticeable compressed tracks which just aren’t worth listening to. However, Spotify has really good sounding tracks that don’t sound compressed. Perfect!
  • Listen to full albums in one click – You just start the album and it will play the whole way through without any interruption, just as if you owned it.

It’s just really simple and easy to use. I’d recommend it to anyone. It’ll even scrobble to last.fm if you want it to.

Go enjoy some free, legal music that’s worth the bother.