!@#$#@$@#@ Napster!! Okay, so I'm a GOOD little girl, and don't download mp3's illegally. I do make copies of my music CD's with WMP and then use the songs I like in TS2 or make Mix CD's to listen to in the car. I'm a huge music fan. Then I got a free week of Napster. Yay! Spent two days downloading Mp3s. Hubby and I had a wonderful time. So today hubby tells me to go to Wal-mart and buy some blank disks so we can burn all these new MP3's to disk and listen to them in the car when we go on vacation later this week. I spend all afternoon fooling around with WMP, trying to get all the playlists together and everything. Start to burn the 1st CD, and I get an error message, "This track does not have burn rights." So I remembered that Napster came with it's own burn engine, and I thought that meant that you had to use their software to burn the MP3's you PAID FOR! Well, guess what!? That wasn't it. It gave me the same error messages. Okay, so let me understand this, because I'm really freakin' confused. I had to give Napster my Paypal information so they could bill me. It's $10 a month. For that I can download most of the music I wanted. There was a few that wanted to charge .99 extra, which again, I didn't get. Most of the music that Hubby and I listen to are 10-20 years old, so it wasn't too much of a problem. (But all the really good Queen and Styx songs had the extra charge. Weird, huh?) So I subscribe to Napster and pay the fee: Why can't I make a CD for my personal use of the same file I own on my computer that I PAID FOR? I thought the reason that we pay the fee was so that the artists could get their checks in the mail and the music business could keep creative control over the songs. Heck, Metallica's music was not on there for download, I looked. So, does anyone have Napster? Is this a problem with the mp3's you download? How do all these people have over 1,000 MP3's and burn them all into CD's? Or am I just a naive idiot who didn't completely read the service agreement and see where it says "You can't burn the MP3's", and then they offer a Burn Engine in their software?! I gave up precious hours of TS2 time for all this, I'm really ticked!!!!!!
The burnable tracks are the ones you pay 99 cents for. It's a total bummer in my humble opinion. The music industry has the law on its side and frankly the law, in this respect, is a dinosaur. (It will die eventually, but it'll probably take the legal equivalent of an asteroid to do the job!) Laws are only supportable when they are perceived to be fair and just. Is it fair and just for an artist, a song writer, a publisher, a session musician to continue to profit from work done decades before? Focussing on performance only it is easy to acknowledge that an aging rock and roller (eg Alice Cooper) may charge all the market will bear for his public performances on stage and screen, as well as for his new recordings ... but School's Out is history and should be share-able without penalty. The first problem is how to reconcile technology with such a concept, the second problem is as insoluble: how to wean a lazy, blood-sucking and bloated industrial giant off its milk and honey diet. Rant over ... sits back and waits for the misunderstandings to pour in
No misunderstanding here...100%agreed with Mirelly All you can really do, since removing the DRM would be illegal, make copy through your soundcard (i.e. with "total recorder") and use that for your mixes The quality loss is insignificant if you use the result in a car anyways And in future stay away from wma since you usually can't use it as intended -le
100% agreeing with you too, Mirelly. Hubby came home from work this morning and checked the files. He tried to do somemthing that changes them so they could be burnt. When he went into the file properties, he found out that they all have datestamps imprinted into the files like a virus. All of the files (OVER 200!) will no longer be usable after 6/8, which is the period of time that my free trial is. Hubby wants me to talk to their customer service department and find out if, after the trial period, if we will loose all these files or if they will be unlocked and be able to be burnt to a CD. It doesn't help for my vacation, my 9 hours of torture in my mini-van as we go through mountains where there are almost NO Radio stations, where the kids are crying because we don't have music on and they are bored, where I'm fighting the urge to duck-tape their mouths shut, or bang my head on the steering wheel, or whatever. And I wanted to say this about the recording industry in my prior rant, but was afraid of offending people. But, for God Sakes, Freddie Mercury is dead, and Styx broke up 20 years ago!!! Do they really need to continue to charge 99 cents a download for "Another One Bites The Dust", "Princes Of The Universe (The Theme from 'Highlander')", and "Lady"? Lexicon: How do you do what you just suggested? Maybe that's what Hubby was trying to do.
Hehe well some big company owns the rights to the Queen songs now that Freddie Mercury is no longer around, so when you buy their stuff the money goes to them. For example, Michael Jackson owns all of the Beatles songs, so if you bought a Beatles album or a Beatles track is used in an advert, the money goes to MJ. Pretty weird, everytime you hear the Beatles, cash lands in MJ's bank account. Sorry, I've gone way off topic here *slaps self*
I use Napster, but don't subscribe. I agree, that service in which you can't burn the songs is awful, IMO. We hate using credit cards over the internet, so we use the prepaid Napster cards you can buy at a drug store. Sorry for going off topic. Anyway, I'm sorry to hear that they won't burn. It's awful to learn that the music you downloaded won't burn. Best of luck in getting this to work!
It makes it easier to understand why so many ppl go to illegal sites to download their music doesn't it....They'd rather risk a penalty than go through all the hoops that pay companies make you do. Don't get me wrong, I don't do either method, too much hassle involved.
I agree with you Scylla. One solution would be a variation on the mail order book thing. People join an online music e-tailer and so long as they buy one new album per month they can download ... ooh say 50 "golden oldie" tracks per month for free. I really do have thing about people making money out of nothing (and, boy isn't that funny: that Mark Knopfler gets a few cents every time someone wants to hear Money For Nopthing?) The daftest is MJ 'owning' the rights to the Beatles' catalog! Old music should be free ... only physical media should cost real money ... and of course that includes hosting servers and bandwidth. But the latter does not amount to 25c/MB! (Especially not when the downloader has to pay for bandwidth at their own end as well, it doesn't!)
Ot: Mj Ever hear the story about how "The King Of Weirdness" got the rights to the Beatles music? It was horrible and underhanded!! According to Paul McCarthney, they were filming the "Say, Say, Say" video. The two of them had hit it off and became friends while they were doing the filming, and you can sortof see that when you watch the video. Well, between takes they were talking, and Paul felt comfortable enough with Michael to discuss business. He told him that the contract the Beatles had signed to the record company was about to expire, and that he, George, Ringo, and Yoko were trying to get the money together to buy the rights. Michael said something to the effect of, "Oh, I have lots of money, I'll bet I could get the rights." Paul thought it was an obvious joke, and the subject dropped. Later, when the Beatles and Yoko put in a bid for the rights, Michael out-bid them!!! Paul says he still doesn't speak to him because of it. And you know what, every time I hear a Beatles song or that one song in particular, "Say, Say, Say, " I get mad at Michael Jackson. As if I needed another reason not to like the King of Weirdness. LOL Saw a standup comedian talking about him on TV the other night. Said the prosecutors should have an easy time with the jury. "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, I give you this. . . " and point at MJ, sitting there in his "uniform" with the tassles, his ugly, misshapen face and bleached skin. "Just look at him!! Please, please find him guilty!" I was ROTF!!! You know what's sad? He's going to get off scott free and be found innocent. :(
