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I love online music, instant access to a much wider variety of music than I can get at any brick and mortar store.
I have a huge music collection that ranges from songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store, Amazon, Rhapsody, Yahoo to those I've ripped from my CDs or encoded from vinyl (you remember record albums, right?)
More years ago than I care to think about (seems like just recently but you'll see different) I found a shareware application that not only would play my music, but would rip CDs, manage my collection, burn audio CDs and provide a "DJ" service that would make dynamic play lists for a given length of time and based on genre, artist or other keywords.
This sounds a lot like iTunes.
But no, Apple was still selling the Quadra... The program as Music Match Jukebox. MMJB was a great program and blew WinAMP (my then favorite MP3 player) out of the water. The only problem was that it only worked on Windows 95 and Windows 98. It wouldn't work on Windows NT Workstation 4.0 which was what I was running at the time. So I wrote them an e-mail and request NT support.
Sure enough as they said in their reply, the next release did support Windows NT and I purchased Music Match Jukebox for (I think) $35. When they e-mailed me my license key, they also stated that it would never expire and was good for all future versions. Very cool!
I used the heck out of it and recommended MMJB to everyone.
Then Music Match got bought out. When the next upgrade came out, my old license no longer worked and I was forced to buy an "upgrade" license. Another $35 for a non-expiring, "good for all future versions."
On the plus side, they added a great "radio" service and created a personal radio station that matched my listening habits perfectly.
I ended up subscribing to their music subscription service, buying music from them, etc. to the point where I bought or subscribed to everything that they offered.
Of course all the new features meant that Music Match Jukebox was getting more and more bloated, losing that svelt figure that was so attractive in the early days. (Just like most of us.)
Then the hammer fell. Music Match was sold yet again, this time to Yahoo. Yahoo promised the Music Match customers that they'd develop a way to transer our MMJB licenses to the Yahoo Jukebox.
Yahoo finally did that in the last six months or so. Just in time to announce that they were shutting down the Yahoo Jukebox service and transferring everyone to their competitor, Rhapsody.
Yahoo jukebox was ok, but it was never as good as Music Match Jukebox, especially MMJB's auto-DJ.
Now, I'm fortunate in that when I purchase DRM'd (crippled) music online, the first thing I do is burn it to CD, rip it back to MP3 and then delete the store bought version. However, there are thousands of folks out there who didn't/don't do that.
Imagine if I'd explicitly followed the terms of service of those online music stores. I'd have songs I'd "bought" from Music Match and Yahoo, that I'd no longer be able to play when I get a new computer. I'd have to try to keep old versions of each player running just to play my current music.
The folks from Music Match and Yahoo don't care. They already got our money plus in the case of Music Match, the money for selling the company. The record lables don't care. They got our money from the royalties paid on our purchases.
Microsoft of course has already closed their music store.
Yahoo and Microsoft both announced that they will no longer issue keys (licenses) for DRM'd music purchased from them. Though in Microsoft's case, the bad publicity caused them to extend their deadline for three more years.
Will I continue to buy music from iTunes? Of course. Will I use Rhapsody? Probably. But I will continue to take the minor hit in fidelity and immediately de-DRM any music I buy. I refuse to be held hostage by an industry that has a proven track record of wiping out your purchases any time they wish.
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Computers, Software, MP3, Music
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