Monday, December 15, 2003
Australia Gets Legal Downloadable Online Music!
DestraMusic.com has beaten the Bigpond and other Australian parties to the punch and has released a downloadable music service in Australia. Australian IT reports:
DestraMusic.com has beaten the Bigpond and other Australian parties to the punch and has released a downloadable music service in Australia. Australian IT reports:
Internet company Destra has made a catalogue of 100,000 music tracks available to internet users via four music retailers, ahead of similar launches planned by Telstra and ninemsn. Prices will range from 99c to $1.90, and Destra chief executive Domenic Carosa said there would be 500,000 songs available by mid-2004. Destra will offer its digital music through online retail partners Sanity.com.au, HMV.com.au, JBHiFi.com.au and ChaosMusic.com.au. The service has launched with songs available from only two record labels, EMI and Festival Mushroom Records, but Mr Carosa said all the other major record companies would be participating within 60 days. ... Mr Carosa said the service, which sells songs in Windows Media format, includes digital rights management technology that allows customers to make up to three CD copies and transfer songs to portable digital music players, but prevents them from transferring them to "pirate websites". Telstra has previously said its online music service will be launched before Christmas, while ninemsn's service will be launched early next year. Apple is expected to launch an Australian version of its iTunes online music store early next year.I decided to try out the service as hosted via JB Hi-Fi, and there were two free songs to test out, and I downloaded George's "Still Real (Real Radio Edit)", and immediately faced the limitations of this (and most other) download services. You must have Digital Rights Management installed on Windows (more info here) which means that downloaded music can ONLY be played on the computer you download it to. The embedded license also tells you whether you can burn it to CD or not (most will allow you to burn twice) and whether you can copy the file to a portable music player. The songs are all WMA, and even with licenses can't be played using WinAmp. There are 100,000 songs at present, which is pretty small compared to the US services, but there are plans to extend upward of 500,000 by midyear. Overall, the service looks like a good start for Aussies, but there's still a long way to go to making these things so good that no one will be turning to KaZaA! Also, the "free" test music is only usable until the 29th of December, and cannot be burnt to CD or copied. The licence will expire on that date, so the "free" songs really aren't that exciting!
[Posted by Unknown] [1:53 pm]
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