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[PeterS]

Now that there are quite a few legitimate online music services out there, we have a better idea of what is, and what isn't, working. We'd like to ask you what you think are the core components of a successful service - one that is fair and attractive to the consumer, but also a viable business opportunity. A lot of things have to come together to achieve this goal. What are they?

Please let us know your ideas and we can draft a blueprint for the ideal music service.

PeterS

[wickesy]

The main one for me is that there must be a pay-as-you-download option.  I don't want to have to pay a fixed monthly subscription when I may not be downloading every month.

[PeterS]

What about formats, bitrates, DRM....?

PeterS

[zevele10]

Here the best solution:

http://www.[web site removed].com/index2.shtml

You order the format and bitrate you want--$0,01 per megabyte of data.

If not , mp3 192 kps, or any other format at the same level of quality.
NO drm ,files free to use as you want.

Prices as the Emusic ones- or a little more ,$15 maximum
a month .
With buy as you want option ,per song at much more expensive price.

I would NEVER EVER pay $1 a song and never ever buy any protected music.

Streaming programs like Raphsody look not bad -- even good with MC recorder on.....--

I do think that all the new schemes will fall - protected and expensive music is a blessing for p2p programs.
Streaming as Raphsody have more future.

I'am ready to pay .I was for 3 years at Emusic ,i bought many $4 albums at MP3.com and spent more than $200  in 3 or 4 months at '[web site removed]'

[wickesy]

Well as I use an IPod I generally keep everything in mp3 for ease of syncing.  To my ear anything from 128 upwards sounds more or less the same so 128 would do me.

As far as DRM goes it would need to be non-expiring so I knew that once I bought it it was mine to listen to whenever I wanted.  It should also allow burning to CD.  

If it was on a pay-as-you-download service as I said above I would be willing to pay maybe 1 pound or so per album more than those on a monthly subscription to off-set the lack of extra revenue for the service provider.

Hope that helps.

[deerhunter]

It must have all the old stuff from the 30's, 40's and on up especially the old country songs. Tried emusic and got about 40 songs before I couldn't find anything more that I wanted.

[digitaltrapper]

I use emusic all the time. Love their pricing structure. I would pay close to 20 or 25 a month for a music service that did "have everything...". I still find a lot on emusic. I would like the ability to download at higher bitrates (160, 192) but also at 128K as well. It would be an unlimited service as well (or a montly limit of some sort... 500 songs?)

[Charlemagne 8]

Zero to cheap subscription fee (no more than $5 a month), stream anything you want at 128K. Like Rhapsody.

A large library of non-mainstream music to either stream or download at will. Of course this would come at a slightly higher price - $10 a month like EMusic.

A large library of mainstream music to download at whatever bitrate and format you choose. Pay by the Megabyte - like AllofMP3.

$0.79 per track regardless of length is ridiculous. With short tracks, you could pay more to download an album than to buy the CD.

HA!! I knew you guys wouldn't give up. I've got $20 a month that I'm paying Emusic + Rhapsody that I would GLADLY switch to JRiver. This doesn't count the $0.01 per megabyte that AllofMP3.com gets. I would, however, expect to pay more than that for downloading bonafide legit. The jury is still out on the Russians.

CVIII

Listening to Doc Watson on Rhapsody.

BTW, integrate the streaming into Media Center, a BIG feature the Rhapsody lacks.

[Influxor]

ok  no can o worms i hope, but i'd like to bring up priceing....

i still think the riaa is wrong on all accounts as far as mp3.. they say it's ditigal...   well i see it same as vcr.. lossy and much below the standard of cd quality even if you grabbing 192kbit+ mp3 or ogg, still is lossy compared to original pressed cdda.

that said-  the ultimate site should not charge $1.00 per song..  much, much less, because in reality your getting a file that has much less resolution and quality than the cd version.

its the same as make a cassette tape copy in static filled dolby b mode of a cd.
there's no comparison, yet they still want to charge nearly or right on full prices for a mp3 or ogg on alot of sites..

and face it a harddrive (for now)  IS subject to data loss. unlike a cd.
i think alot of things should change in online music....  maybe, just maybe if the riaa would consider paying thier top execs a few million less every year and put those payments toward the actuall artists, things could be cheaper.. but thats only my little opinion.

riaa and big tobacco companys.. big government.. somehow it all has a ring to it.

anyway, not trying to make anyone mad here.  but in my short time this is the way i see it  only one dudes opinion.

i ask just were does the artists come into this, and how much do they actually make in raw cash per cd sold?  bet it's pennys on the dollar.  thats wrong.


and i must say as far as delivery, [web site removed].com is best thing since sliced cheese.

[Deivit]

Well, here are my 2 cents.

I'm a full-album guy. Although I do not like all the songs of an album, I prefer to have the whole album than single songs.

Having said that, I can buy any album in my local retailer for an average of ¤ 16,00 (approx. US$ 16,00). I can buy any album online from US online stores (Amazon) for a similar amount of money plus additional freight in the event that I cannot find the album here in Barcelona.

I've been on vacation in the States since last Tuesday. When in Boston, I purchased a good number of used CDs and paid from $ 4,99 to $ 7,99 each.

Now, in both cases I have the original album with the original artwork, liner notes, lyrics and package. I also have the ability to rip my CD as much as I want in lossy formats... withoung losing my full CD quality.

When talking about digital , I will get a lossy file, no artwork or liner notes, no package, nor I will have the ability to "recreate" the original lossless format of the digital file.

I would be a customer of a musical service that gives me the ability to download a limited number of tracks which, with a monthly fee, a pay per download or a combination of both, gives me a complete album for a price less than $ 4,00. Other than that, I would prefer to spend a little more and have a used CD at 7,00 or a new CD at 15,00. I don't think I'm gonna suscribe to a site that charges $ 0,75 or more for a single track since this will mean a price for a whole album very similar to a new original CD if not more!

As for streaming... I'm not interested at this point on a streaming-only service. Call it cultural cliché, but I still prefer to own my music and play it whenever I want to... but I'm open to any change  

Thank you.

[PeterS]

How much value do you place on content other than the music itself - Artist info, rare photos, concert footage, tour dates, recommendations etc?

PeterS

[zevele10]

Well , not sure..

If i was able to get the songs with artsleeve - bio- lyrics, note in the tags , i would rather use the service doing it ,even if a little more expensive.

Now concerning  rare pictures and all you said ,why not if it is a 'bonus' at no extra price. But would not pay more for this.

If i'am not wrong ,what you mean is :'what about extra  stuffyou would not have with the original cd ?'
You are right ,this is a way to go ,even if of no interest to me.

But i see it as a free bonus ,not a way to put $1 tag price to one song download.

Any music on lossy format is junk.
McDo is junk food.

BUT
A McDo IS NOT sell the price of a fine meal in a good restaurant.

And they want to sell kind of McDo music at  the price of  a good meal.

[jebbrown]

I think the best (and most successful) service would be one that lets you stream on demand in fair quality (128 mp3 or WMA) and then optionally lets you buy the tracks for a reasonable price.  What’s a reasonable price?  Well I buy new CDs from BMG for about $6.50 a piece including the $2.50 per CD shipping (they regularly have 4 for 1 sales), and you know they’re still making money at that price.  Thus a CD quality track downloaded from a web site which does not require shipping to me (nor the inherent prices associated with a physical CD) should be worth less than 1/12 of $4.00.  Figure 35 cents a track for CD quality.  128kbs is not even close to CD quality, and I have a problem paying full retail for that (seems a bit greedy to me).  Most people who argue that it is CD quality are using a $35 sound card with $25 speakers.  I have a semi-pro sound card hooked up to a $500 Home Audio Receiver and to me there is a big difference.  I’d like to see 10 - 15 cents for the 128k files and 30-35 cents for CD quality files.  At those prices, I think the majority of file swappers would be swayed.  A flat subscription rate would also work, even at twice Emusics’s rate.  I truly believe the music industry would make much more money in this scenario and everybody (especially me) would be all the better for it.

Rhapsody and [web site removed] make an excellent pair - I listen to whatever albums seem interesting to me on Rhapsody.  If I like it a lot, I'll buy it from [web site removed].
A service that combine the better parts of Rhapsody and Allofmp3 would do very well, even at twice the price.

[PeterS]

Thoughts on choice of media players and level of integration of service within media player?

PeterS

[zevele10]

Keep in mind the Emusic saga: a lot of work ,a download manager that now only a few use, and BOOM ! Finish

Look like you could have it again and again.

I think that you can play protected WMA files , can you do the same with the Real files?

If you take Rhapsody ,there is more than the player.
You can make playlist, favorites ect ect .
How can you built it in MJ/MC ?
With some other small details: Rhapsody desaeble the 'automatic  rip'  in TotalRecorder.
You would have to do the same ?
But you can rip Rhapsody using MC Recorder..
So,what about MC Recorder?

Anyway ,look like Rhapsody may change now that it is part of Real.
Can it be that only RealOne would play it?

This is also one of the raison all this services will fail : you have to use software X or Y , not the one you want.

Can you imagine to have to use ONLY a Sony TV to get CNN and ONLY a Yamaha tv to get Movies Channel?

On the top of it if you have another brand that this 2 ones ...... you are stuck.

If JRiver, i would not try to run after the bandwagon.
But to be on the side lines , as the Ipood plug-in  and all other hard drive players.

Now ,for sure ,we return to many other posts on this forum: how mister average would react in front of MC 9,1 the day after he got his player......

Can be that a solid MJ 9 is needed before wandering in new waters...

Have a nice week-end

[Influxor]

personally i think integration of media players into music services is a bad idea... main reason i hate realone and refuse to use it.

there needs to be a users opinion and choice.. integration seems to be killing that...reminds me too much of microsoft, sure it can make you money, but may not the best thing to remove choices and force others to pay for a single solution.

all and all i think developers are maybe tripping over themselves trying to make things too easy for joe general public.  joe needs to learn and keep the choices around.

just my take on it.

[zevele10]

joe needs to learn and keep the choices around

-=-=-=-=-=
Joe is a kind of person who gives bread to many many.
If Joe does not want to learn and you do need bread , you would go his way ,not yours.

Beside this ANYONE is a joe in ONE - or more- domain

Joe does not know well computer ,but at the same Joe can be a very brillant doctor.

I know that many here would like the Joe to go away.
...but no bread=== no beta anymore

[Influxor]

good point zevele!

i still hate realone  heheheh  

[zevele10]

UP TO YOU !!!!!!

I think that they products are not bad,let say a very fair Joe level........

But the way they behave is disgusting.

With a custom install , tweaks and settings on my firewall , RealOne behave in an acceptable way.

Long ago ,i was a RealJukebox Plus [ free....] user.
The juke was not bad. In my opinion the best of all the Joe at this time.

I moved to MJ 7 and started another story... for sure!

[MachineHead]

Now that there are quite a few legitimate online music services out there, we have a better idea of what is, and what isn't, working. We'd like to ask you what you think are the core components of a successful service - one that is fair and attractive to the consumer, but also a viable business opportunity. A lot of things have to come together to achieve this goal. What are they?

Please let us know your ideas and we can draft a blueprint for the ideal music service.

PeterS

First:

What are you hinting at? Is J River suddenly in a position to offer this kind of service?

I thought that in days gone by that some labels looked at you guys with a fair amount of disdain. Something change?

Second:

No DRM. Period. Any hint of this and I would never be interested. I'm not a swapper, and still do not want anything remotely linked to this kind of technology.

Third:

Anything out there should be available. For a price. Whatever that is, it should be less than current cd prices. Otherwise - not good. Of course this is based on format. Lossless (and broadband) would be the ideal cadidate. And i don't care which lossless format it is. As long as MC can play and decode to .wav for archival purposes.

Fourth:

Must be able to have an option on the terms of service. Month by month, six months, a year, etc. Being roped into a contract only to find out it isn't justifiable would blow. Hence, month by month.

Fifth:

Are you guys really serious about this? Or is it a diversion? Straight answers, please.

[Charlemagne 8]

MH,
I think that they've indicated that they're interested just by asking the question. I'm very glad about it and I hope it works out this time. I discovered Media Jukebox when i was searching for an alternative to Napster which was about to shut down. I found AfterNap and through a sequence of events, had an Email conversation with JimH. I was impressed with his attitude and gravitated on over to MJ ( version 5, I believe) and have been hooked on the product and the board ever since. I was really excited about Music01 and even signed up for a DSL connection just for it but it stopped operation the day before my DSL was installed. Not sorry as a faster connection opened up a whole new world for me.
So now they're making noises again and I am all for it with my wallet open.
Until Media Jukebox, I had NEVER bought anything on line before. That also opened up a new world for me and for good or bad (some of both) that Djinni's out of the bottle.
At any rate, I wish them good luck and pledge my support to the extent I am able. I don't even do that for Educational TV despite their constant whining.
CVIII

[zevele10]

Jim spoke about to  reopen Music 01.

But with licensing the tracks.

Means that they may get license for 'big names' but not for very underground music ,bots and bands not anymore in action or never on cd riped LPs.

To pay even one cent a month to be able to stream big names from one user is a waste for me.
To be able to stream Charlemagne ABB bootlegs ,MachineHead limited edition hard blues cds, HTH riped jazz lps may make me ready to spend on the service.
But this will not happen ,and 80% of my 500+ giga music would never be avaible , cause you cannot license it.

Beside this ,i'am not sure i really need a new kind of service : Emusic+Russian+ 2 p2p+ FTP server give me 100% of what i need

[Influxor]

Beside this ,i'am not sure i really need a new kind of service : Emusic+Russian+ 2 p2p+ FTP server give me 100% of what i need


=====================



once again zevele, i fully agree!  

[zevele10]

Really.
It is not a matter to pay or not.
It is a matter to 'what i get for the money i give'
I'am better to give a $10 donation to Ss that buy 10 songs on Real.

And what i really would like to have is not on cd:

Third Earth Band, first LP
Henry Cow, Live
Spooky Tooth, second album
Love, they double Lp
Chambers Brothers , they double lp
Slack Alice they first lp.

Some of them i have it on LP ,so i can rip them.
But there is some i do not have on lp....so......

[crowfan]

For me the most important element is what I can do with the music. It should be as hassle-free as possible. I should be able to trasfer it to my portable device, burn it on to a CD, etc.  The less DRM the better, of course none would be ideal.

I use mp3s at 128, and I would think that should be a base starting point, and the bitrates should go up from there.

As far as payment is concerned, personally I prefer the pay-as-you-go method.  It's the easiest, and I don't find out after paying for a subscription that the service doesn't have what I want. I agree that $1 USD per track is a little steep, seeing as how you get a lossy format as opposed to full CD quality (not to mention the case, liner, actual disc, etc.).  The dollar-a-track method puts it roughly on the same price level as an audio CD for a full album, and I'm getting less.

I would think that adding artist info, album art, etc, should definitely be a part of the package.

To me, streaming is useless. I want to be able to carry my music with me.

I'm very excited about this prospect, as I have yet to find a legit service that meets my needs, and J River has a history of great, customer-oriented product...

My 2 cents....

crow

[Michael Horton]

I can't help with formulating an economically viable business plan (I've never been economically viable--don't know anything about it), but I can tell you under what circumstances I would most certainly subscribe:

Complete albums, current independent releases available, lossless format, CD inserts available for download at, say, 60% or so of the cost of the actual CD, paid for on an album by album basis. Integrated with MC would be nice in my book.

[Charlemagne 8]

YAY!!!
MHORTON!!!
Where have you been?  Haven't heard from you since sometime in June (OK, June 6 -- I looked it up).
Glad to hear from you.
CVIII

[Michael Horton]

Thanks KdGXIII !  

I still lurk periodically.

[PeterS]

Free trials are offered by some online music stores to allow people to test drive the service. What is the best/most effective offer in this situation?

PeterS

[zevele10]

The 7 days Rhapsody trial:

NO credit card ,just an email

[jebbrown]

Depends on how your offering downloads - if it's subscription based, a 7 day trial with full access except that there could be a limit on the number of downloads.

[crowfan]

I can say this, I am much less likely to try any free trial if I have to give a credit card number before starting the free trial period. In some cases, they will start charging your card if you don't cancel at the exact right time. I think Zevele and jebbrown's ideas are good ones.

crow

[zevele10]

Of cause ,if we speak about downloads , in this case one week/X downloads trial.

If stream like Rhapsody ,one week plain stream

[Shelly]

To be attractive to me, the service would have to meet the following requirements:

• Minimum bitrate of 192 cbr
  
• Full albums
  
• Wide variety of genres, including jazz, soundtracks, standards, latin, rock.
  
• Fair pricing plan

I think the pricing plans utilized by many of the news services are very flexible depending on the anticipated useage.  For example, the service that I subscribe to has the following plan:

Monthly accounts:10G/$10 , 25G/$20 , 50G/$30

Semi-Annually:60G/$50 , 150G/$100, 300G/$150

Annually:120G/$95 , 300G/$190 , 600G/$285

Shelly

[jebbrown]

Hi Shelly.

What service are you referring to?

[Shelly]

Hi Shelly.

What service are you referring to?

Newshosting

[Endymion]

1) Support for IPOD format (AAC)
2) Purchase lossless encoded file (APE with DRM?) at lower than price I can buy CD.
3) DRM that works like ITunes (several computers/IPODs) plus ability to remove rights from one computer and transfer to another
4) Music store with ability to suggest recommendations (like what amazon does)
5) Downloadable cover-art and lyrics

6) Bios, additional info optional - many sources where I can get this info if I want it.

7) Ability to preview tracks before buying.

[511PF]

Ideally, the service would have files with no DRM.

That's not going to happen any time soon, so here are the true requirements, based on what's happening in the market now:

1. Burn multiple times to CD.
2. Above 128k MP3 quality.
3. Transfer to portable music players.
4. All albums less than $10.  
5. Old, back catalog albums $4-$8, depending on demand.
6. Ability to authorize multiple machines to play music.
7. Ability to de-authorize machines easily.
8. ONE licensing model for ALL music on service.
9. Cover art and liner notes in a printable format.
10. Cross platform compatibility (Windows, MacOS, Linux, UNIX)

iTunes currently covers most of the requirements.

[NoCodeUK]

For me the biggest thing would be availablity in the UK...if it's not going to be there is no point me debating...

This is the one thing that I see iTunes does not have covered...

Adam

[Sauzee]

I may be in the silent minority here, but I don't like this music service integration idea with MC at all.

OK, I can just not use the service, but my fear is that JRiver's focus will be diverted from the core software functionality.  

If this service integration into MC requires any development resource, then those are resources that would have otherwise have been used on developing the core product.

[lOth]

my fear is that JRiver's focus will be diverted from the core software functionality

I think that your fear is hopefully unfounded: if MC comes to integrate a music store service in the near future, I believe it is precisely the development of the core software functionality that will make MC more appealing than its competitors.

If this service integration into MC requires any development resource, then those are resources that would have otherwise have been used on developing the core product

If we are to believe JimH about JRiver's working on a "big deal" over the last six months (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=16016), and if this big deal turns out to be struck with a music store company, I think that a lot of development resources have already been used with that goal in mind (the time and efforts spent on integrating wma with new DRM over the summer suddenly make sense...). Well, if it's the case, one must admit that it didn't slow down the work on the core functionalities much: more than 50 new builds since early August, I don't know how many in the last 6 months but surely a lot, and with many important improvements.

I think you should not worry, the integration of a music service could arguably be the best stimulant for the development of core software functionality JRiver has had in a long time. And it might be, let's hope, just the beginning of it...  

Edit: Just turned 'World Citizen'. Hurray! Guess it also means I should spend less time on this board  

[Lucy]

It should be available to people from all over the world, not just US people!

[solhell]

Let me have a shot at this. I actually used a lot of these services to date, emusic for 2 years, rhapsody, musicmatch mx, etc.
I think there needs to be a distinction between the riaa albums and the independent label albums and how they should be handled. I usually want to have full albums of the albums such as the ones in emusic, but probably get one song from jay-z or 50 cent, couple songs from eminem.
Also, I don't know why but I couldn't fnd groups such as Sonata Arctica, Kamelot, Rhapsody, Luca Turilli, etc. in these online services. So, a service that is more complete would win for me.

OK.
- First distinction needs to be between rhapsody kind of streaming and itunes kind of song downloads. I like rhapsody but why would I buy an album if I can stream it at high quality whenever I want. I won't buy albums from them if they only offer same quality downloads. If they offer a lot more, I would buy from them. Let me talk about a lot more below..

- First of all, I need either full or 30 second high quality streaming of the songs for previewing purposes. More than availability, easy accessibility is important for me. Itunes is doing a good job at this. But where it fails is, I need to click each song one by one to preview each of them. I want to be able to preview an album, as if it is a playlist, even loop so that I can listen to them over and over before I decide I want to buy the album.

- It is inportant that I have access to information such as the most popular albums of an artist, most popular songs in an album. AMG website accessed by MC has this information.
Good genre categorisation (Rhapsody is doing a good  job). Also current most popular song listings in each genre, essentials for this genre, year by year top songs, etc. Again easy accessibility is important.

- Music files (hopefully mp3's) needs to have embedded full CD art, images, full lyrics (time syncronized?) and maybe extras. I should feel that I am getting more than what I would get in a real CD. These extras can be sort of DRM'ed, so that they can't be shared or copied. But if I move from one computer to another, I should be able to download these extras to my new computer from internet or the jukebox should do it.

- I need to know that I can get the lossless versions of the songs I bought. Bandwidth is expensive so maybe this can be a physical shipment, songs burnt to a DVD or CDs in a lossless format (and maybe with Apple style DRM if they must). Lossless format shipments can cause extra say, 10c per song, plus media, plus handling and shipment. But I need to know I have the option anytime I want.

- No DRM. Don't shoot yourselves in the foot. A better solution would be a per user-based digital watermarking. Which would mean, if you share your songs on kazaa, they can be tracked to you. It would be enough to scare people off even if it won't work 100% of the time.

- For non-mainstream emusic style groups, I need per album pricing 2$ or maybe 3$ per album is fine. Here I am in music discovery mode almost all the time. No DRM, why would they need it anyway. And since they are not too expansive nobody would bother stealing them. High quality VBR MP3 is a must. Mp3 is important for portability. No 128 bit mp3's. It is ok for classical music or new age, but it is terrible for punk, rock, heavy metal songs... For punk, 256 would be the minimum CBR.

- For popular, big label albums, a per song and per album combination pricing is ok. Again the ability to get lossless versions is important for me.

[ThatAdamGuy]

I've tried many of the pay services, including Emusic, MusicMatch (Radio MX), Rhapsody, MusicNow, BuyMusic.com, iTunes/iTMS, PressPlay, and Napster 2.0.

I think Napster is the most promising overall, though I prefer some aspects of Rhapsody and MM and iTMS.  BuyMusic and MusicNows are, IMHO, not even anywhere in the ballpark of acceptability.

Many great suggestions have already been offered (though I admit that my preferences differ significantly from some posters'); here are my own thoughts on the ideal music service.  It'd have:
- A search engine that's simple, but optionally powerful -- like iTMS.
- Customized radio that's as good as MusicMatch MX.
- Detailed album and artist info even for stuff it doesn't have rights to yet (Napster's way behind on this)
- Online community features that are integrated with the service (Napster is by far the best so far, but has a LONG way to go to realize the potential of this area)
- Both a la carte and subscription features (again, Napster wins here).  I LOVE being able to listen to hundreds of thousands of songs, full-length (even when offline), for $10 a month.
- No DRM on purchased songs.  Hey, I bought them, quit treating me like a thief!  As others have noted here, watermarking is an excellent substitution for DRM, IMHO.
- A robust selection (both old 30's jazz tunes and also tracks from CDs the day they come out)
- Intelligent and flexible labeling (ALL the services currently do a HORRIBLE job with soundtracks right now!  Napster doesn't even have a Soundtracks genre <sigh>)

I'm sure there are more things I could think of, but I'm tired, and this is a good start IMHO

[NickM]

The bottom line.

I buy CDs.  I rip my own and play my own on MC and iPod.

I was in Manila last week and saw a set of 4 DVD's with 5,000 songs for sale at USD10.  That's 0.2cents each song.

Forget all the sophistication of licensing, copy-protection, pay-by-use sites.  With the ability to copy cheaply and sell illegally, there is an extraordinarily low barrier to entry to this market.

Now what was intersting, was that these DVD's had playlists, id3 tags, cover art, lyrics and artist info.  As far as I am concerned, the pain in the neck and time consuming exercise today that I face is taking my own CDs and getting them into my MC life with all the ancillary data.

I would gladly pay for a clean sweep from a thrid party at my tags, art, genres etc - something that I don't have time to do and I KNOW enhances the playback choices.  There must be other people out there like me??  Maybe not, but at least they might have the same requirements from music systems...

Nick

[technobarbie]

* No copy protection
* Choice of what format you want your tracks in
* Option to stream the entire song
* Price around 20 cents a track
* Tracks that are already tagged
* Selections would include out-of-print albums and more non-mainstream music
* Great interface like Rhapsody

[khaos100]

1) Lossless! Lossless! Lossless!  I'm paying for music. I want the original music. If you compress it, you better give me the original that I can put back into true wav format. I dread seeing the day when mp3 becomes common for everything including retail CDs. Screw high bit rate for MP3, I want higher bit rate and lossless. If I can't get that, which right now I can't, screw it.

2) No DRM. I bought it, leave me the ** alone. You want to watermark it? Fine, I don't give my stuff away.

3) If the above two are there, I'm willing to pay a buck a song as long as I can preview it first.  If I don't like it and I buy it, I ripped myself off.  The extremely low rates you guys expect is sometimes humorous but some are fine since it is not the originally recorded song in all its glory. It's compressed.

[Charlemagne 8]

$0.01 per megabyte is actually available. It is MP3 but the bitrate can go as high as 384.
Admittedly, that's quite a low price and I would be willing to pay quite a bit more for a lossless format that can be downloaded with tags, cover art and track list and/or lyrics in place. I'll supply the blank CD, the printer and ink and the print medium but don't expect me to pay as much as I would if I went to Wal-Mart and bought it.

[nila]

For me this is easy:

• VERY good quality music (192 CBR is what I'd personally want, mp3 or ogg). VBR admittedly can be better quality but it's just too hard to tell by a quick look at the file what type of quality it is, therefore I like CBR.
• NO DRM. If I'm buying a song I want to be able to do with it what I want, I paid for it, it's MY song, fine I cant share it, but I can do what I want with it. Burn it 100 times, put it on my mp3 player, change mp3 players, put it on the new one, get a new hard drive, transfer it straight over with no problems, shove it on an mp3 cd for my car, in two years I wanna be able to shove it onto my car hard drive based player that by then will be affordable.  Basically if I'm gonna pay for a song it has to be more attractive to me than just downloading it for free. Putting DRM into it for me just makes it TOTALLY unattractive and not worth it unless it was SERIOUSLY cheap so that I wouldn't mind buying it again if I had to.
• NO lock into ANY player. I want to be able to play it with ANY bit of software I chose, however I chose.

Basically, I'd be willing to pay for music if it was easy to use, no restrictions on how or what I do with it or play it with, good quality in the format I chose, cheap enough to make it appealing (cheaper than a CD and should reflect the fact we're not getting a physical item that costs money to make, to ship, to store and for the shop to sell it in).
I'd also be more tempted if the music contained alot of extra info lilke lyrics, cover art, Bios, anything like that. Ability to download the music video as well instead of just the song would also appeal to me alot.

[rocketsauce]

VERY good quality music (192 CBR is what I'd personally want, mp3 or ogg). VBR admittedly can be better quality but it's just too hard to tell by a quick look at the file what type of quality it is, therefore I like CBR.

You really need to get over this bitrate = quality thing of yours.  Mostly all the bitrate tells you is the bitrate. You can take an old jazz song and encode it at 192 and it will sound great, but you could also encode a heavy metal track at 192 it will sound like crap.

Rob