Even though legal music download services seem to be to catching on very well, PC Pro magazine in the UK reports about UK music lovers getting frustrated with digital music tracks they purchased online. These issues consist of restrictions, high pricing, disappointing sound quality, lack of physical feel, unable to play the music on their player to even losing their collection after a hard drive crash.
Restrictions seem to be the main issue, such as being locked into the one sound codec as well as being limited to what one can do with their music. This is also where the lack of physical feel comes in since one could easily play a regular audio CD in any CD player they want, however as different legal music services may use different audio formats, the consumer is limited to what player they may choose from or even being prevented from playing their purchased music on their existing player. For example music purchased from Napster will not play on an iPod or even a WMA compatible player that lacks DRM support.
However, when purchasing a regular (unprotected) audio CD, the consumer is free to rip and choose what ever codec and bitrate they wish to use. There is no limitation on where they may play their music and there is no issue with losing the music as a result of a hard drive crash. On the other hand, legal music services does have its advantages in that the consumer only chooses they music they like, unlike CDs where they must pay for the full CD. Finally, it only takes the length of time to download the music before the consumer has can play their music, unlike purchasing a CD online where the consumer would have to wait until it arrives on their doorstep.
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The magazine reported that people are also being turned off net music stores because of pricing and disappointing sound quality compared with CDs. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said legal music downloads rose by 900% in 2004. Last week, the UK's official singles chart included sales of legal tracks. Yet legal downloads are still fledglings in the music industry, accounting for 2% of the market, according to PC Pro's Nick Ross. "What people don't understand is that when they buy an iPod or other digital music player, they're being tied into a system," said Mr Ross, deputy labs editor at PC Pro. Read the full article here, including reader's comments. |
DRM restrictions and lack of codec choice seems to be the major factors putting most consumers off of online music services. In fact the first thing some consumers do when they purchase music online is to record their music to CD to escape the restrictions and rip it back off in their own choice of codec, like with any other regular music CD. This technique is expected to be blocked later on as the music industry would like music services to copy protect the CD while the music is recorded to it. Even if the consumer decides this rather tedious approach to unlocking their music, the sound quality suffers even further due to further lossy compression of an originally lossy compressed track.
In my opinion, the lack of physical media may also be a major factor that puts some consumers off digital music downloads. For example if one does not have much trust in their PC for regular use, they are unlikely going to trust it to hold their music collection. If everyone decides to choose the online method for purchasing music, the days of showing off one's music collection would be lost. For example showing off a 1,000 CD collection in the living room is not quite the same as showing off a small MP3 player with the same collection of music on it. At the moment, many consumers still find it amazing with how much music can fit on such a small unit, but give it a few years and an MP3 player would seem no more special than today's CD players. Even if one were to record their music to CD, having a rack of CD-R's still does not look quite the same. :p
Feel free to discuss and find out more about online music services on our Music Downloads, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) & Legal Issues Forum.
Source: BBC News - Technology
