4 ms·

Isn't google play music a streaming service though? It really doesn't seem like the place for that.

shmerl 11y ago
What stops them from offering an option to get files as well? I always prefer to have my music backed up and available on my devices without relying on any cloud services. I view streaming as a convenience, and not as an approach that requires one to forgo having a DRM-free backup.
- untog 11y ago
  What stops them from offering an option to get files as well? Well, they don't want you to be able to permanently download the files. If you cancel your subscription you'll lose whatever you have downloaded. Offering you a file you can easily convert into a different format would break that pretty comprehensively.
  - shmerl 11y ago
    > Well, they don't want you to be able to permanently download the files. And why is that exactly? > Well, they don't want you to be able to permanently download the files. Not sure what they gain by it. I prefer to buy and keep what I bought. Not really interested in renting digital goods. That's why I'm not using Google Play and similar stores for music. Bandcamp offers DRM-free music in FLAC for example, and there once you buy it - you keep it.
    - untog 11y ago
      And why is that exactly? Because it is a streaming service, not a download service. I prefer to buy and keep what I bought. Not really interested in renting digital goods. Then don't use a streaming service.
      - shmerl 11y ago
        > Because it is a streaming service, not a download service. Why can't they offer both? For instance Bandcamp does. You can stream music if you don't want to download it, but you can as well back up your DRM-free copy which I always do. I only pay for music when such option is available. > Then don't use a streaming service. I see no correlation between streaming (convenience) and forbidding one to download what is streamed (DRM). I'm OK with first, but I'm not OK with second.
        untog 11y ago
        I see no correlation between streaming (convenience) and forbidding one to download what is streamed (DRM). But streaming isn't convenience, it's the business model. At no point do you buy any albums, you merely rent them while you listen to them. Otherwise you could subscribe for one month and download every single piece of music you can within 30 days, then cancel. That's pretty obviously not how the system is designed to be used.
        shmerl 11y ago
        > But streaming isn't convenience For me it's convenience. > At no point do you buy any albums, you merely rent them while you listen to them. I don't really understand the concept of renting for digital goods. Since they can be duplicated practically at no cost, there is no practical reason to "take and return" approach (i.e. rent). Keeping your digital copy does not reduce any value for the service. > Otherwise you could subscribe for one month and download every single piece of music you can within 30 days, then cancel That can easily be prevented by saying that you can't exceed certain limit of downloads for such service if you only pay per month, and not for each copy. But again, I see no reason why they can't offer an option to pay per copy and let you keep one.
        untog 11y ago
        Keeping your digital copy does not reduce any value for the service. Of course it does. If you listen to an album a lot, it would either cost you a one-off payment $9.99 to download it once during your subscription, or, if you can't download it, you'll have to pay $9.99 every month in order to listen to it. Allowing users to download music permanently would absolutely affect the profit Google would make - let alone how difficult it would make their negotiations with major labels.
    - simoncion 11y ago
      > > Well, they don't want you to be able to permanently download the files. > And why is that exactly? As untog says: "Because it is a streaming service, not a download service." People make a fair bit of money on software and services that attempt (with varying degrees of success) to automate music industry billing. Music industry billing is complicated because music industry licensing is (needlessly) complicated. Streaming services typically have substantially different royalty rates than services that make it easy to save a copy of a given audio file. What's more, the license is very likely to have reporting requirements attached to it, along with different rates for partial plays and the like. These rates and reporting requirements may vary wildly from song to song and from album to album. Have you ever wondered why there isn't one audio and one video streaming site that has everything that rightsholders are willing to have streamed on the Internet? It's because * The Big Music and Hollywood rightsholders aren't in this to make things easy for you. They're in this to make shitloads of cash. * As Big Music learned from Apple, permitting a single entity to distribute pretty much all of your product substantially reduces Big Media's negotiating power. [0] This means that Big Media makes less money and... refer back to point #1. [0] Being able to credibly threaten to remove something from the catalog, or be a gigantic ass and demand substantially more money for an entire album, rather than "most of the album, except for those couple of songs that are really good" helps to keep their rates high.
      - shmerl 11y ago
        > Have you ever wondered why there isn't one audio and one video streaming site that has everything that rightsholders are willing to have streamed on the Internet? I indeed wondered about that :) All those release limitations always looked stupid to me. > The Big Music and Hollywood rightsholders aren't in this to make things easy for you. They're in this to make shitloads of cash. They are just blind with their thirst for control, which outweighs their thirst for money. They are losing money on making things harder for their users. For instance DRM means lost sales for them. Same goes for fractured releases and poor availability of what they offer. They might gain some power to tell who can get what, where and when, while in practice they reduce reach of what they make which means less profit. Avoiding too much distributor's leverage can be an issue if there is only one distributor or some collusion between them. If there is healthy competition, they can always ditch one and chose a competitor which balances this issue. In a healthy market, creators should distribute all their content through all available distributors.

What stops them from offering an option to get files as well? I always prefer to have my music backed up and available on my devices without relying on any cloud services. I view streaming as a convenience, and not as an approach that requires one to forgo having a DRM-free backup.

untog 11y ago
What stops them from offering an option to get files as well? Well, they don't want you to be able to permanently download the files. If you cancel your subscription you'll lose whatever you have downloaded. Offering you a file you can easily convert into a different format would break that pretty comprehensively.
- shmerl 11y ago
  > Well, they don't want you to be able to permanently download the files. And why is that exactly? > Well, they don't want you to be able to permanently download the files. Not sure what they gain by it. I prefer to buy and keep what I bought. Not really interested in renting digital goods. That's why I'm not using Google Play and similar stores for music. Bandcamp offers DRM-free music in FLAC for example, and there once you buy it - you keep it.
  - untog 11y ago
    And why is that exactly? Because it is a streaming service, not a download service. I prefer to buy and keep what I bought. Not really interested in renting digital goods. Then don't use a streaming service.
    - shmerl 11y ago
      > Because it is a streaming service, not a download service. Why can't they offer both? For instance Bandcamp does. You can stream music if you don't want to download it, but you can as well back up your DRM-free copy which I always do. I only pay for music when such option is available. > Then don't use a streaming service. I see no correlation between streaming (convenience) and forbidding one to download what is streamed (DRM). I'm OK with first, but I'm not OK with second.
      - untog 11y ago
        I see no correlation between streaming (convenience) and forbidding one to download what is streamed (DRM). But streaming isn't convenience, it's the business model. At no point do you buy any albums, you merely rent them while you listen to them. Otherwise you could subscribe for one month and download every single piece of music you can within 30 days, then cancel. That's pretty obviously not how the system is designed to be used.
        shmerl 11y ago
        > But streaming isn't convenience For me it's convenience. > At no point do you buy any albums, you merely rent them while you listen to them. I don't really understand the concept of renting for digital goods. Since they can be duplicated practically at no cost, there is no practical reason to "take and return" approach (i.e. rent). Keeping your digital copy does not reduce any value for the service. > Otherwise you could subscribe for one month and download every single piece of music you can within 30 days, then cancel That can easily be prevented by saying that you can't exceed certain limit of downloads for such service if you only pay per month, and not for each copy. But again, I see no reason why they can't offer an option to pay per copy and let you keep one.
        untog 11y ago
        Keeping your digital copy does not reduce any value for the service. Of course it does. If you listen to an album a lot, it would either cost you a one-off payment $9.99 to download it once during your subscription, or, if you can't download it, you'll have to pay $9.99 every month in order to listen to it. Allowing users to download music permanently would absolutely affect the profit Google would make - let alone how difficult it would make their negotiations with major labels.
  - simoncion 11y ago
    > > Well, they don't want you to be able to permanently download the files. > And why is that exactly? As untog says: "Because it is a streaming service, not a download service." People make a fair bit of money on software and services that attempt (with varying degrees of success) to automate music industry billing. Music industry billing is complicated because music industry licensing is (needlessly) complicated. Streaming services typically have substantially different royalty rates than services that make it easy to save a copy of a given audio file. What's more, the license is very likely to have reporting requirements attached to it, along with different rates for partial plays and the like. These rates and reporting requirements may vary wildly from song to song and from album to album. Have you ever wondered why there isn't one audio and one video streaming site that has everything that rightsholders are willing to have streamed on the Internet? It's because * The Big Music and Hollywood rightsholders aren't in this to make things easy for you. They're in this to make shitloads of cash. * As Big Music learned from Apple, permitting a single entity to distribute pretty much all of your product substantially reduces Big Media's negotiating power. [0] This means that Big Media makes less money and... refer back to point #1. [0] Being able to credibly threaten to remove something from the catalog, or be a gigantic ass and demand substantially more money for an entire album, rather than "most of the album, except for those couple of songs that are really good" helps to keep their rates high.
    - shmerl 11y ago
      > Have you ever wondered why there isn't one audio and one video streaming site that has everything that rightsholders are willing to have streamed on the Internet? I indeed wondered about that :) All those release limitations always looked stupid to me. > The Big Music and Hollywood rightsholders aren't in this to make things easy for you. They're in this to make shitloads of cash. They are just blind with their thirst for control, which outweighs their thirst for money. They are losing money on making things harder for their users. For instance DRM means lost sales for them. Same goes for fractured releases and poor availability of what they offer. They might gain some power to tell who can get what, where and when, while in practice they reduce reach of what they make which means less profit. Avoiding too much distributor's leverage can be an issue if there is only one distributor or some collusion between them. If there is healthy competition, they can always ditch one and chose a competitor which balances this issue. In a healthy market, creators should distribute all their content through all available distributors.