[aom3]

According to TorrentFreak, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) last week released their latest report, summing up the digital music landscape at the start of 2008. The IFPI claims in the report that for every legal music download, there are 20 illegal downloads taking place. Or in other words, illegal downloading is happening at a rate that is 20 times that of legal downloading. This, says the IFPI, lead to US$3.7 billion in industry losses. But there are some big holes in that claim....

Source: Why the Music Industry is Lying to You - ReadWriteWeb

[tomhr]

Originally Posted by aom3

Source: Why the Music Industry is Lying to You - ReadWriteWeb

The author of the linked article states that people who download lots of songs from P2P sites buy more songs, not fewer -- something I didn't know.

That author also has a poll of his readers, whether they would have bought all the music they'd downloaded, if illegal P2P downloading did not exist. Let me throw out a similar question about "illegal" ALL-SPARKS: If this Russian music site did not exist, would you have bought the music as downloads from Wal-Mart or Amazon, or bought the songs on CDs?

Speaking for myself, no way! Through ALL-SPARKS, I've downloaded songs from Agnetha Faltskog, Natacha Atlas, and Celine Dion (in French, when I don't speak French) -- to name just a few artists I've discovered here. (Faltskog and Atlas, I had never even heard of, before I came to this Russian music site.) There is no way I would have gambled twenty bucks apiece to buy CDs of these three artists (assuming I could find such CDs). And to pay a buck a download from Wal-Mart or Amazon, based on just a thirty-second sound sample? Highly doubtful.

Only an American lawyer can claim that letting a potential customer listen to the entire song in 24 kbps mono will cost sales. To me, that's ALL-SPARK's biggest selling feature! How many times have I listened to a thirty-second sample on Wal-Mart.com, and that thirty seconds is all instrumental intro? Ridiculous! With ALL-SPARKS, I know what I'm buying.

I buy from ALL-SPARKS because they make the shopping experience easy and fun, instead of treating me like a paroled hacker. I like being given choices, rather than being told, "You'll take what we give you, or we sue you."

[squash54]

Originally Posted by tomhr

The author of the linked article states that people who download lots of songs from P2P sites buy more songs, not fewer -- something I didn't know.

That author also has a poll of his readers, whether they would have bought all the music they'd downloaded, if illegal P2P downloading did not exist. Let me throw out a similar question about "illegal" ALL-SPARKS: If this Russian music site did not exist, would you have bought the music as downloads from Wal-Mart or Amazon, or bought the songs on CDs?

Speaking for myself, no way! Through ALL-SPARKS, I've downloaded songs from Agnetha Faltskog, Natacha Atlas, and Celine Dion (in French, when I don't speak French) -- to name just a few artists I've discovered here. (Faltskog and Atlas, I had never even heard of, before I came to this Russian music site.) There is no way I would have gambled twenty bucks apiece to buy CDs of these three artists (assuming I could find such CDs). And to pay a buck a download from Wal-Mart or Amazon, based on just a thirty-second sound sample? Highly doubtful.

Only an American lawyer can claim that letting a potential customer listen to the entire song in 24 kbps mono will cost sales. To me, that's ALL-SPARK's biggest selling feature! How many times have I listened to a thirty-second sample on Wal-Mart.com, and that thirty seconds is all instrumental intro? Ridiculous! With ALL-SPARKS, I know what I'm buying.

I buy from ALL-SPARKS because they make the shopping experience easy and fun, instead of treating me like a paroled hacker. I like being given choices, rather than being told, "You'll take what we give you, or we sue you."

This is one of the big pluses with Sparks for me. Another RU store (Sales) has recently seen the light and started to introduced full length samples.

What would be ideal for me would be a sample at a higher quality but where the last 30 seconds are cut to discourage spongers.

[solaris]

Originally Posted by tomhr

The author of the linked article states that people who download lots of songs from P2P sites buy more songs, not fewer -- something I didn't know.

That author also has a poll of his readers, whether they would have bought all the music they'd downloaded, if illegal P2P downloading did not exist. Let me throw out a similar question about "illegal" ALL-SPARKS: If this Russian music site did not exist, would you have bought the music as downloads from Wal-Mart or Amazon, or bought the songs on CDs?

Speaking for myself, no way! Through ALL-SPARKS, I've downloaded songs from Agnetha Faltskog, Natacha Atlas, and Celine Dion (in French, when I don't speak French) -- to name just a few artists I've discovered here. (Faltskog and Atlas, I had never even heard of, before I came to this Russian music site.) There is no way I would have gambled twenty bucks apiece to buy CDs of these three artists (assuming I could find such CDs). And to pay a buck a download from Wal-Mart or Amazon, based on just a thirty-second sound sample? Highly doubtful.

Only an American lawyer can claim that letting a potential customer listen to the entire song in 24 kbps mono will cost sales. To me, that's ALL-SPARK's biggest selling feature! How many times have I listened to a thirty-second sample on Wal-Mart.com, and that thirty seconds is all instrumental intro? Ridiculous! With ALL-SPARKS, I know what I'm buying.

I buy from ALL-SPARKS because they make the shopping experience easy and fun, instead of treating me like a paroled hacker. I like being given choices, rather than being told, "You'll take what we give you, or we sue you."

Hi Tom.


I agree with you 100% on all of this


Might I add that you probably (hopefully?) just think you hadn't heard of Agnetha Fältskog prior to finding her as a solo artist on AllOfMP3. She is in fact VERY well known as one of the two A's in Swedish multi million selling act ABBA

The other A being Anni-Frid Lyngstad - or Frida as she was called as a solo artist and you might want to check out the title track (#6) on the below CD:

Here found on MP3Sparks: Frida, Something`s Going On: MP3 Download

And here found on MP3Sale: Something's Going On Frida mp3

[tomhr]

Originally Posted by squash54

[snip]

What would be ideal for me would be a sample at a higher quality but where the last 30 seconds are cut to discourage spongers.

I have to disagree. Sometimes I come to the Internet through a slow 28k dialup. And then, Wal-Mart's high-quality samples are actually a pain in the ass: I hear one second of song, wait forever for more stuff to load, hear one more second of song... At ALL-SPARKS's 24 kbps, even a 28k dialup can get streaming audio. And since I'm old enough to remember monaural AM radio heard on tinny transistor radios, 24 kbps mono doesn't bother me.

In short, I am glad that ALL-SPARKS doesn't have high-quality samples.

Besides, there is audio-stream-capture software out there. If ALL-SPARKS streamed high-quality samples, they couldn't dare play the whole song. So they'd chop every sample after thirty seconds. And then they'd be Wal-Mart, but without the DRM.

[Dave C]

Agree with tomhr on this one (but for different reasons I guess). I'd much rather hear the whole track in low quality, rather than the majority of the track in high quality. This is good enough to get a feel for whether you are going to like it. The thing which mp3sparks does which wins my loyalty every time is the 'preview full album' option. If there is an album I'm unsure of I just hit this and have it playing in the back ground for a few track. If I like it its easy to just hit the add album button (assuming you have any credits left),
Cheers,
Dave C

[squash54]

Originally Posted by tomhr

I have to disagree. Sometimes I come to the Internet through a slow 28k dialup. And then, Wal-Mart's high-quality samples are actually a pain in the ass: I hear one second of song, wait forever for more stuff to load, hear one more second of song... At ALL-SPARKS's 24 kbps, even a 28k dialup can get streaming audio. And since I'm old enough to remember monaural AM radio heard on tinny transistor radios, 24 kbps mono doesn't bother me.

In short, I am glad that ALL-SPARKS doesn't have high-quality samples.

Besides, there is audio-stream-capture software out there. If ALL-SPARKS streamed high-quality samples, they couldn't dare play the whole song. So they'd chop every sample after thirty seconds. And then they'd be Wal-Mart, but without the DRM.

The trend is for internet access to be faster and cheaper, particularly in the big markets. Portable music players and headphones will continue to get better and cost less. Those with access to broadband will demand the benefits that can be delivered through it - including higher quality music files. Suppliers will react accordingly.

I DL a lot of classical music much of which is orchestral and, because of its complexity, suffers more aural degradation from file compression than a lot of popular music. Low quality samples make it very difficult to tell the quality of the original recording. This means I pay for a high bitrate DL and then discover the recording is rubbish and bin it. (I try to avoid this by looking up reviews or taking the advice of people on this forum who may have recommened the piece).

Also, in my post, I suggested that a high quality sample could have 30 seconds cut from the end of the track so you got to listen to most of it and rip-offs wouldn't be an issue.

Dave mentioned in another post the advantages of the 'Listen to Whole Album' option on Sparks and he makes a good point. Perhaps Sparks could offer the 'whole album' sample at low quality and the individual tracks at high quality but cut the last 30 seconds.

Was that a pig that just flew past my window

[Nightfly]

I have been using Skylive.fm lately, where you create a playlists in a radio
format and I listen to complete tracks in good quality..
and Mp3skyline has a huge library to pull from.

I need to at least listen to a few full songs from a album
to get it's feel and what direction it's producer has taken the artist.

Just saying it's a compromise that works for me.