So it pays to listen
09mar03
FOR years the mere idea of an Internet music service you would pay for was enough to make users of free services such as Napster, Kazaa and Gnutella break out laughing.
It wasn't merely the absurdity of paying for something that they could get for free.
Rather it was the fact the subscription sites set up by the major record labels were so woefully put together that, even if they were the only source of music on the planet, people would prefer to hum tunes rather than use them.
The song selection was awful, prices were astronomically high, there were strict limits on how many times you could listen to the songs, and on what machines you could play them, and you were usually banned from burning copies of the music on to your own compilation CDs.
The awfulness of the offerings provided ample justification for members of the Net generation to swap their music over the legally challenged file-sharing networks, which the music companies -- despite an aggressive legal onslaught -- have failed to shut down.
Online fans argued music companies were drastically over-charging for CDs and failing to offer any viable alternatives for the millions of users for whom music was something they listened to via a computer rather than a hi-fi system.
That argument now rings hollow. Internet giant AOL recently began offering its 27 million US subscribers the MusicNet service for the first time. AOL Australia says it is also looking to provide a similar subscription music service to Australian users, but that they must first sort out how to protect the artists' digital rights.
"We need to resolve the issue of artists' rights before we could launch a local service," says AOL's Australian corporate affairs managers.
"We are definitely looking at the opportunities at the moment, but need to sort out these issues first."
Previously, AOL had judged that the catalogues offered were too stingy and expensive. Now subscribers to MusicNet can pay a sliding scale to access more than 250,000 tracks for download and streaming. The service offers CD quality tracks from all five major record companies.
More tracks are being added each week and soon the service will unveil a pay-to-burn feature which will allow users to copy music on to MP3 players and other devices.
MusicNet, part owned by Bertelsmann Music Group, EMI and Warners, is one of six comprehensive online music services making rapid advances. Together with MusicMatch, pressplay , Rhapsody and Streamwaves, these revamped download sites offer a credible alternative to Kazaa and other free sites.
While the pooled musical resources of Kazaa's millions of members still offer an unrivalled collection of songs, many are of dubious quality, searchers often experience difficulty finding what they want and music companies are increasingly using spoof files that appear to be genuine songs, but merely waste the user's bandwidth and time.
It's still early days yet, but the quality of the new services means the writing's on the wall for free music on the Internet, according to many experts.
"It's time for all you pirates to haul down the skull and crossbone flying over your PC's and give legal music a chance," said tech reviewer Mike Langberg writing in Silicon Valley's San Jose Mercury News. "All six services offer some form of free trial, so there's no excuse for not at least trying to go legit."
Internet analyst Phil Leigh compared the situation to that of bootleggers during the prohibition era of the 1920s.
"Once alcoholic drinks were legalised, outlaw activities became fringe activities. I think we'll see the same thing," he said.
