News
Reuters: Microsoft, OD2 Launch Europe Online Music Service
By Dennis Lloyd
Publisher, iLoungeGoogle+
Published: Thursday, August 14, 2003
News Categories: Digital Media
“Beginning today, music fans with Microsoft’s Windows Media Player version 9 can purchase individual music tracks for 0.99 euros or 75 pence from OD2’s library of over 200,000 songs, representing a 25 percent discount from most other European subscription services, the companies said.
The move marks the first time European consumers can purchase song downloads off the Internet for under one euro ($1.13), and without requiring a monthly subscription, bringing the fee in line with the popular Apple Computer iTunes service, which is not yet available in Europe.”
Also note, Australia’s National News reports songs downloaded from the new service will “allow consumers to burn CDs or copy tracks to portable players like Apple’s iPod.”
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1
Most of their stuff is WMA, i couldnt find any mp3’s. How would it be copied to a portable player like the Ipod.
Posted by austin on August 14, 2003 at 9:52 AM (PST)
2
Well on iPod you are locked in to Apple’s codecs. Get Archos, Rio, iRiver… they support many many more formats. The new Rio Karma even supports FLAC (lossless audio) and OGG (best damn lossy encoding out there).
Posted by CodecsAGoGo on August 14, 2003 at 10:47 AM (PST)
3
Oh dear.
£1.49 if you want to buy just one song. It gets slightly cheaper if you buy in ‘bulk’ but it still works out at about £10 an album (11/12 songs)
I can buy a CD for £8.99 delivered. Why would I pay more for a 12 compressed files? I wouldn’t even pay that amount for the original files.
25p per mp3/wma and they’d have a sale.
In fact I’d wager these services would be a lot more popular if these non-CD quality files were priced at a more realistic level.
Posted by Mudskipper on August 14, 2003 at 11:00 AM (PST)
4
especially as wma is so crappy in its own right and its a little confusing having so many different links on that site
Posted by ti on August 14, 2003 at 11:12 AM (PST)
5
No matter what format you use. Paying money for #### quality songs is amazing to me. iTunes, Microsoft’s new venture, etc…. They are ripping people off.
Would you buy CD’s if tomorrow they came with 128kbps MP3 songs?
Come on….all these services are an insult to the consumer. They all stink and they take advantage of people’s stupidity.
When I want to buy some music, I go to my music store and buy a CD.
Posted by Against paying for shitty quality on August 14, 2003 at 2:34 PM (PST)
6
To previous poster, have you ever sampled the quality at itunes? they offer high quality AAC files for 99c, not 128k mp3s. the quality is still not as good as i’d like but then again with full quality tracks on an ipod you don’t get near the quanity… of course i’m not that picky it’s more about convinience than being an audiophile
Posted by You don't pay for shitty quality with itunes on August 14, 2003 at 5:07 PM (PST)
7
I was stoopid enough to use the new ‘club’ last night. The file downloaded as a .wmd type that Musicmatch couldn’t handle. Ended up burning to a CD the recording from it.
Very disapppointed.
Posted by AlexD on August 14, 2003 at 8:02 PM (PST)
8
iTunes quality sucks. I know, I made the mistake of downloading some songs. I can’t believe these Apple crooks charge $1 for such piece of crap! Bunch of crooks. But of course, they are only catering to Apple users for now and since Apple following is like a cult, whatever Mr. Jobs says is sacred. And all the cattle follos suit.
Come on, you don’t even realize you’re getting ripped off.
I’ll keep buying my CDs at my local store and at least getting what I paid for.
Posted by itunes quality sucks on August 15, 2003 at 3:22 AM (PST)
9
If at least iTunes was selling FLAC or Ogg Vorbis…..but no, they are selling crap trying to promote their lossy compression.
Come on….people deserve good quality if they’re going to pay for songs.
Posted by I Agree on August 15, 2003 at 3:39 AM (PST)
10
Lighten up and check out reality for a moment - if you want perfect audio quality, get off your ### and to a music store and buy a CD. Until mainstream download speeds increase dramatically to the point where downloading .aiff’s is reasonable, you’re going to have to accept some quality loss in a downloading service. As to what format is best, well, the company’s entitled to choose the form of its products - and you’re certainly not having to pay the premium price for the hard copy, non-lossy CD.
And for you guys having a right royal iTunes-bashing sesh, one question - could you please point out anything (legal) that does it any better?
Posted by Get Bent on August 15, 2003 at 4:27 AM (PST)
11
iTunes stinks…...Enough said.
Remember it only caters to that minority of people who are completely computer impaired.
MACs are a joke in the computer world.
Posted by Bah on August 15, 2003 at 7:58 AM (PST)
12
“MACs are a joke in the computer world.”
Ahhh, the plaintive cry of one who is falling behind… and Windows is so good that they are trashing it for Longhorn?
In YOUR compuer world, maybe - but check out what the geeks and serious computer users are buying these days - Windows? I doubt it.
Posted by Eric on October 25, 2005 at 5:59 AM (PST)