Registered: Mar 2000
Location: Border Independent
Posts: 69

This may not be exactly the right forum, but one of the reasons I bought the Visor was the promise a multipurpose device which could also play MP3s. For those who didn't read it in the news, it seems the recording industry has won a case against mp3.com.

In a nutshell, mp3.com has a very innovative system whereby they have recorded some 80,000 CDs as MP3, and then they allow users who purchase a cd over the internet to start listening to it right away from their website. Also, instead of legally ripping your own cds (time and storage consuming), you can put them in the cd drive and their software verifys that you have the cd and lets you listen to it online anytime anywhere after that.

Despite the fact that CD sales have increased dramatically the last year despite the explosion of mp3 and other formats, the record industry is hell bent on using copyright law to squash any innovation that might possibly infringe on their sweet monopoly that makes all of us buy a CD containing only 10 songs from one artist when we only want to hear one! It is not paying for the CD that I see as the problem, it is the limitation of the choice of content.

So, I am going to do my small part and do my darndest to never purchase a new CD again! What do you all think?

So Innogear, bring on the MiniJam!

Registered: Jan 2000
Location: Twin Cities, MN
Posts: 1683

Well, you SHOULD still purchase CDs simply to support the Artist. Yea, the music industry giants take a huge cut of that sale, but if you don't support the artists, why would they want to make more music?

Hopefully, soon, artists will be able to circumvent the industry and sell their music directly via MP3.

Registered: Nov 1999
Location:
Posts: 67

<This may not be exactly the right forum...>

Correct. Maybe one of the VisorCentral staff can move this thread to the Off-Topic section.

<...the record industry is hell bent on using copyright law to squash any innovation that might possibly infringe on their sweet monopoly that makes all of us buy a CD containing only 10 songs from one artist when we only want to hear one! It is not paying for the CD that I see as the problem, it is the limitation of the choice of content.>

Oh, the humanity. First of all, even if mp3.com had won the lawsuit you would still be "forced" to buy an entire CD to use the mp3.com service in dispute. (By the way, the lawsuit was just a prelude to a settlement. The record companies just wanted leverage to extract a royalty.) Second, many artists don't want to release their songs piecemeal (like Led Zeppelin, who never released singles). The choice you are given is to support an artist's vision or to take your business elsewhere. I don't like the idea of a society where anyone can tinker with the integrity of art. And yes, calling the crap that's popular these days "art" does bother me, but it takes all kinds.

Third, artists who aren't yet well known need big intermediaries like record companies to get their music heard by the masses. This will always be true. Even more populist orgs like www.garageband.com will become basically the same animal.

<So, I am going to do my small part and do my darndest to never purchase a new CD again! What do you all think?>

There are plenty of used CDs on eBay. But seriously, if I had the bandwidth I'd rather (legally) download music, too.

<So Innogear, bring on the MiniJam!>

Hear here!

[This message has been edited by burningyen (edited 05-02-2000).]

Registered: Apr 2000
Location: Santa Clarita, CA
Posts: 198

Even though "mp3.com" lost the suit, the .mp3 format is alive and well, and always will be. Whether your mp3's be legal (ripped from your own cd's) or not ("napster", for example) is up to you, but the minijam player will do what you want it to - namely carry the songs you want to hear in a customizable, programable, compact package. (if I didn't already have a diamond rio500, I would be dying to get a minijam)

------------------
Hmmmmmmmm......