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Phishin For Live MP3's |
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 For lack of anything better to write about (except maybe the power outage, which incidentally, I'm hoping was caused by the MSBlaster worm - unlikely I know, but one can hope, right?) I'm going to tell you about LivePhish.com.
Before I get to that though, you should know that a few weeks ago Apple ran a story about the rock group Phish, and how they use Macs to let concert-goers buy music from the show they just saw immediately after the show.
Well today, I just heard of the LivePhish.com site (even though it's apparently been around for six months). On the site, Phish lets you buy music of archived shows, and it's really pretty reasonable:
$9.99 for a full show in MP3 format
$12.99 for a full show in FLAC format
If you've never heard of FLAC, you're not alone. As the FAQ on LivePhish.com states, "FLAC is a 'lossless' compression which means that the source audio file is compressed, but without sacrificing any of the audio information contained in the master recording."
Basically, FLAC is for audiophiles who want their music to be encoded in a format as close to the source as possible. Two downfalls of FLAC however, are huge file size and they can't be played on devices that are strictly "MP3 players". Plus Mac OS X users have to extract FLAC files to AIFF before burning to CD, and there is no software whatsoever for Classic Mac operating systems.
Anyhow, enough about FLAC, let's talk about the site itself. LivePhish.com is OS and browser independent, meaning that pretty much anyone can use it. You can always look at "My Stash" to see all the music you've purchased, plus how much time you have left to download it (you get 48 hours from the time of purchase). The sound quality is pretty amazing for a live show - especially when the shows are available for purchase within two days!
The only bad thing I can say about the site is that you have to click on each individual song to download it...why couldn't the files be zipped or Stuffed? (Stuffit-ed?)
DRM is pretty wide-open with LivePhish.com. You can download the music from more than one computer, although you only get a one-time pass code if you log in from a second machine. You can personally do whatever you like with the music: back it up to CD, make different copies of the MP3's (even into different formats), flip them around with a spatula, whatever. However, you may NOT make copies for other people, since, as Phish reminds us, this would violate "our taping policy as well as federal and state copyright law". This is strictly on the honor system so let me point out another reminder by the nice guys of Phish:
If you would like to see this type of delivery of shows continue and flourish, please respect our taping policy and don't abuse the system.
That seems like a fair rule to follow for such a fresh and "shackle-free" system.
Now, Phish is a cool band for many reasons, one of which is that they allow people to record their shows. However, many people are taking Phish up on the offer to burn a CD immediately after a show, or purchase music online.
The main reason for this is the pristine soundboard quality you get for a pretty nominal fee, if you consider the time and work involved in recording a show yourself. Plus you get printable booklets with liner notes, tray inlays and CD labels.
Now for some opinions...
(Stop reading now if you don't want to hear about the RIAA, music-swapping, french ticklers, etc.)
We've had a good debate going for a while about the RIAA and illegal music swapping. I'm kind of in the middle: i think the RIAA should have ways to make sure they get paid, as long as it doesn't limit too much what the consumer can do with music. But my big question is, if Phish can do this, where are the other bands and the rest of the music industry? The Music biz has waited for Apple (and now Microsoft) to hold it's hand as it baby-steps into the new digital era, and it's still doing things the old way, as well as slapping people with lawsuits even though there's still not a viable online option for most computer users.
iTMS and this type of service by Phish offers real value to people over just downloading stuff through illegal file-sharing programs. You can't find the library of music available at LivePhish.com at any of the free file sharing services, and even if you did, they wouldn't be as high-quality.
I believe this is what needs to be done by the RIAA - innovative, value-added services that make people jump at the bit to give them money! If Phish can do this, I'm sure other bands can start their own websites and start selling MP3's online.
But that's just one guy's opinion. ;)
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August 15 2003, 12:08 PM EDT, by
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Comments:
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| Josh |
8/15/03, 2:21 PM EDT |
Just to let you know, you can listen to FLAC files directly without extracting them with MacAMP Lite, which is now abandonware (go to http://www.macamplite.com/ and grab the beta version which has all the plugins). True, you still have to extract them to make audio cds, but, technically, you have to do that with mp3s as well.
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| va1entino |
8/15/03, 10:13 PM EDT |
You hope the MBlaster virus caused that?
Did you know someone died? Yeah.
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| Genie |
8/16/03, 1:31 AM EDT |
Genie's got a good deal too-
http://www.geniesongs.com/personal.html
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| jonahan |
8/16/03, 12:12 PM EDT |
va1entino...what?
I didn't say I hoped or wished that the blackout happened. Just that the CAUSE of it was the worm.
I'm a logical thinker - maybe too logical at times. But I look at it this way. It happened, regardless of the cause, and the results would have been the same independent of the cause.
Now if the cause of the outage was/is terrorists or just the fact that the grid is old and outdated, it will take years to fix it and/or secure it.
If the cause is just a worm, then people will sue Microsoft, government and big business will shift to Linux and OS X, and things will be more secure and stable in much less time - and this sort of thing will have less of a chance of happening again. Maybe people would also rethink their trust in Microsoft in OTHER critical applications as well.
So like I said, I hope the cause of the power outage was the worm, as unlikely as that may be.
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