Articles: Music Feature: Lowdown on Downloading – 57
How do you get your music? It’s a question akin to asking someone what their fix or their poison of choice is. For, within those six words are six hundred (give or take) further personal and political questions. For example: what do you download your music onto? What’s your downloading provider of choice? How do you feel about Digital Rights Management (DRM)?
See, it’s just like asking someone for their thoughts on recreational drug use, or where they stand on the foreshore and seabed debate.
Of course, I had no idea it was such a loaded question. Perhaps that’s because, in my usual ‘keep it simple’ way, I’d just bought the most conventional – and very slickly advertised – product: an iPod. Which of course meant I also bought into iTunes and the iTunes Music Store. For those of us who don’t get a huge sense of enjoyment out of finding alternative (be that cheaper, faster, more independent or just different) means, an iPod and iTunes are obvious choices. Why? You buy it, open it, charge it, get your internet going, download the software and bingo, you’re more or less an MP3-savvy star. You’ve taken the bait, the hook, the line and yes, the sinker.
Lo and behold, though, this isn’t the only way to do this whole downloading thing. Oh no. Although, in December when the iTunes Music Store was finally rolled out in New Zealand, the general public would have been forgiven for thinking that before iTunes Music Store they had nothing.
So in the interest of knowing what is going down with downloading I did a little investigating.
Local providers:
digiRAMA
digiRAMA launched in New Zealand in 2004 as our first legal music downloading store. DigiRAMA was also the first download site in New Zealand to secure licenses with all the major record companies (Universal, Sony BMG, EMI and Warners), and it also offers music from independents such as Liberation and Shock, giving digiRAMA an impressive and diverse array of music at your mouse click. The site boasts music (700,000+ tracks), music videos, radio (FLAVA, Viva, ZM, Classic Hits, Coast and Hauraki), ringtones (mono, polyphonic and real), movie trailers and ‘gear’ such as headphones, speakers, players, accessories and gift vouchers.
Individual 128kbit/s WMA (Windows Media Audio) tracks will set you back $1.75 (compared with $1.79 on iTunes), an album $17 (although there are $12 specials). For the purists out there, digiRAMA also offers around 20 WMA Lossless tracks (lossless compression offers far higher audio quality than the standard 128kbit/s downloads but you’ll need a very good internet connection, because the size of the music files is dramatically larger – a 4MB song at 128kbit/s will be around 20MB in the Lossless format).
If you’d like a little visual with your audio, digiRAMA has a solid library of music videos. You’ll get a 30-second peek for free and after that you’re looking at $3.50. The site is easy to navigate and you’ll soon get excited about all the new content you’re going to be able to plug into your ears. But hold on. Before you fill your shopping basket, digiRAMA doesn’t support iPods (because of Apple’s FairPlay copyright protection software not being licensed to third parties), needs your player to support PlayForSure (a programme that identifies compatibility), needs Windows Media Player 9 (or higher), a web browser (like Internet Explorer), Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition or higher (including Windows Vista). Oh, and there’s more. But I think you’ve got my point.
Shaun Davis, the Managing Director of DMD (digiRAMA’s parent company), is more than aware that digiRAMA has its faults. Indeed, when I asked him what he felt digiRAMA most needed to improve on, ‘inoperability across devices’ was his immediate response. Of course, that may have something to do with the amount of grief he fields from bloggers and geekzone.co.nz chat room folk.
CokeTunes
Launched in 2005, and also claiming to be ‘New Zealand’s first major digital music download store’ (apparently you can have more than one ‘first’), CokeTunes boasts more than 600,000 ‘cheap’ ($1.75 per track, $18 an album) downloadable 128kbit/s WMA tracks. Wrapped in all its Coke advertising and promotional finery, the site is very navigation-friendly and the biggest thing it has over digiRAMA is its impressive international catalogue.
Of course, CokeTunes has its own ‘will work/won’t work’ list. To access the site you need a PC with a Windows operating system (Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP). No Macs, as Macs don’t support the DRM technology. You also need Internet Explorer Version 6 or above (not Firefox), Windows Media Player Version 7 or above and Flash Plug In. So, as one savvy blogger pointed out, that means the five percent of users on Macs and the ten percent of users who prefer Firefox have to change their ways before they can play. Good-o.
Furthermore, many people have commented that they get a WMA file inside a ZIP archive when downloading. So you’re compressing and compressing and you’re getting – what? No, better sound quality is not the correct answer.
Unless you’re with Telecom (you can buy tunes via SMS for $2.75, $1 of which is a ‘transaction’ fee), you’ll need a credit card to download from CokeTunes. Given the target Coke audience I would have thought this was a little bit of an oversight.
Dick Smith – RipIt
‘Don’t rip it off’. Get ‘RipIt’ instead. That’s the idea behind Dick Smith’s legal music download site, which was launched late last year. Acknowledging that music downloaders are predominantly under credit card-holding age, this system works through vouchers that you can buy at any of DS’s 65 nationwide stores. It’s competitively priced, too: 99c for a promotional track, $1.89 for a single, $3.99 for a music video and $16.90 for an album. Tracks are WMA at 128kbit/s: see a pattern developing?
Again, this service only works with Internet Explorer Version 6 or above, WMP Version 9, 10 or 11 and only downloads to PC (no Macs). Plus, people have reported all sorts of problems getting the songs to play once they have downloaded them. And if you do go looking for help you’ll be put through to Sondbuzz, the Singaporean company charged with keeping it all tickety-boo. Good luck.
Amplifier
The home of New Zealand music. And no, they don’t make any claims about being the ‘first’ anything. Amplifier.co.nz offers Kiwi music as MP3s but, due to some record label restrictions, not all NZ music is available. Not that you’ll mind – there is so much content on this site you’ll more than get your NZ’ill fill: Amplifier TV lets you watch music videos (you have to login), listen to Amplifier Radio and preview tracks for 30 seconds before you buy them. Plus, they have a huge genre list to surf through and, for those of us who like things put on a plate, they have an Amplifier chart. Also, there’s a free download every week. Nice.
Got that?
The whole downloading scene seems to be hog-tied by DRM (Digital Rights Management). Apple has one
called FairPlay and Microsoft has Windows Digital Rights Manager: these are the two predominant DRM systems. Basically (and there is a huge argument online should you care to get involved) DRM systems authorise the viewing or playback of copyrighted material on a computer or a player and prevent you from making unlimited copies of that material. Theoretically DRM also means the artists get paid. If I pay one dollar to download a track, part of that dollar can then find its way back to the artist. But DRM systems are the reason downloading is so convoluted. Everyone needs you to jump through a hoop before they’ll give you your goods.
Posted by Tone on July 20th, 2009 in Articles
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