p2pnet - rss feed: Dutch firm moves in on Apple
p2pnet.net News:- Apple won’t be happy. But the Big Four record labels are.
A Dutch music retailer is promoting a new download service here and here offering some 250,000 tracks at 0.89 to 1.19 euros ($1.46) for non-p2p-savvy people in The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.
And Norway and Finland are slated to follow to follow, says Reuters here.
The announcement goes one step further towards establishing the ridiculous $1 - $2.00 as the price for Big Music tracks downloaded from one or other of the plastic corporate music sites.
As we’ve written elsewhere, there’s a Never-Never-Land where Big Music is King with the owners of the various corporate music sites and ’services’ carrying its ‘product’ and dancing to its tunes.
It’s like Farmer Jones growing the same variety of cabbages loaded with growth hormones and genetically altered so they’re an identical shade of green, and then offing them in a brutal hard-sell to the same grocers. Because the cabbages have been artificially produced, they’re bland and tasteless but the grocers - jammed together in the same shopping mall - are nonetheless trying to sell them at grossly inflated prices to tiny group of people who don’t know any better, or who just don’t care.
In the meanwhile, in June, almost 8,325,000 people were on one or other of the p2p networks at any given time and around one billion tracks are moving between and among computers around the world every month, says p2p research firm Big Champagne.
And even that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
Trading also happens through newsgroups and irc, not to mention AIM/instant message users, as a p2p Reader Writes here, going on:
“There are also smaller networks, there are private servers/channels/hubs. There are p2p apps and services that only share within a local LAN network. (ideal for file-hungry but increasingly-restricted university accounts) All of the users of these P2P methods form a second tier of P2P: the vast uncounted file sharer population.”
The Reader’s Write also mentions the unmonitored “sneaker-net“.
In the meanwhile, with Apple et al as their dupes and with the mainstream media as their messengers, the Big Four record labels are trying to convince the online music loving public that corporate music is where it’s at.
Of course, in the real world, that’s a ridiculous contention - which isn’t to say the Big Four aren’t making money, and lots of it. There are plenty of plastic corporate music sites, all selling the same stuff from the same labels.
Apple was hoping to dominate this market, such as it is, but according to the Reuters report, “Free Record Shop plans to sign on more labels to double the number of tracks available to 500,000 by the end of the year, but this would still lag iTunes Europe’s 700,000-track library.
“The Dutch retailer says a focus on chart hits, local acts and an option to order regular CDs and DVDs will distinguish it from competitors such as Tiscali and Chello, which also operate Dutch download stores in cooperation with Britain-based OD2. OD2, which announced in June its sale to Loudeye Corp, runs a host of download services for retail chains such as HMV in Britain.”
Napster II is also trying to get into Europe but there, as everywhere, its presence doesn’t really register.
But of course, Big Music doesn’t really care who’s peddling its stuff as long as someone is.
August 10th, 2004 at 7:21 pm
Yeah I agree, screw the Big 4 record companies and it’s artists. I mean Ms. Spears and Ms. Simpson (et al) have enough money without more people paying for their tracks. And screw all the Independents too, all they peddle is crappy fringe music the masses don’t like or want anyway at expensive prices! All the on-line music stores offer is a bunch of music the majority of the people like and want through very organized distribution channels (logistics) with a guaranteed level of quality (although I would like to see a lossless option for all tracks).
If you fuckin think a buck is too expensive for one track you actually want, you have to think purchasing an actual CD (who uses or has CD’s anymore lol) at a store is even more expensive, because it is.
Screw all P2P too, I tired of fuckin’ downloading flawed tracks and tracks that some jackass has coded twice (or maybe three times), or coded at some stupid fucking volume level with boosted bass or treble which has now has fucked the quality of the track. I’m tired of filtering trough all the crap on P2P. I do love getting something for nothing, but I prefer quality. So screw P2P, I have the buck to spend, and for the fuckin’ convenience and the assurance I’ll get a good track - I’ll damn well spend it and save my valuable time for things like going for a walk with my wife - so fuck you jackasses.
We all know you P2P cheapskates don’t like the legal music download industry. Don’t buy any tracks then, do what you do, shut the fuck up and quit your fucking whining and complaining and do something more constructive with your time.
August 11th, 2004 at 3:42 am
Well another RIAA cocksucking supporter has shown up to flame the broad’s!!! How nice!!!!!! Hey Fucknut spend your money supporting Major labels WHOOOOOOOO sue 12yr old kids and grandparents and people who don’t even own computers asshole!!!!!! These same labels whooooo brainwash you (If you had a brain) with their PAYOLA to get their Labels songs played on the radio sooooo you will buy their crap while they cheat the artists out of every dime they can!!!!!! Go ahead dipshit give your money to them I rather BOYCOTT that kind of bussiness model!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!