Verbalism Personified

More All of MP3!

Ever since fellow Mac Addict Clarence, introduced me to All of MP3 (AoMP3) music store, buying music online hasn’t been easier. This has finally brought to everyone else what US customers have been enjoying for so long with Apple’s iTunes Music Store (iTMS).

Would you like fries with that, sir?
As mentioned previously, registering an account is free of charge. Credit can then be purchased directly via credit card or paid through a third-party paymaster such as Paypal. An account holder can purchase credit in multiples of 5 US dollars. While ordinary members may only buy songs in MP3 format, VIP Club members enjoy the benefits of higher download bandwidth, song previews and unlimited downloads of the same songs purchased earlier. This would require the account holder to maintain available credit.

VIP members can choose from a variety of Lossly and Lossless encoding formats. However, it should be noted that members are charged via download volume at 0.01 US Cent per megabyte, or 0.02 US Cents in some cases. Therefore re-downloading the same songs will cost you money.

With familiar encoding formats like MP3 and WMA, VIP Club members are offered a plethora of exotic alternatives such as AAC VBR, Ogg Vorbis, MusePack, WMA 9 Lossless, Monkey's Audio, OptimFROG and FLAC, with the four latter encoders belonging to the Lossless family.

Or AAC VBR perhaps?
My songs are encoded at 192kpbs AAC VBR. I had made this decision based on a number of factors. One would be that AAC offers superior quality compared to MP3 of the same bit rate and file size. Second is that it works with Apple’s iTunes music management application and I can stream music to other Mac Users on the same sub-network. Third, I can retain compatibility with Apple's iPod, should I choose to buy one in the future.

I know that this is a compromise as opposed to my audiophile tendencies, where the best form of compression is no compression at all. However I have to take into account the playback quality of my PC speakers, Altec Lansing at work and AR Powered Partners at home, when selecting the compression bit rate. It is also unlikely that I will listen to music purchased online through my personal audio system, as I reserve that for solitary listening via CDs. Apart from Apple’s own proprietary Lossless codec, I have not tried any of the other Lossless formats offered, though I doubt that they will work with iTunes.

Something for Everyone
So albums from Alice in Chains, Fates Warning, Linkin Park, Black Eyed Peas, Nelly, 50 Cent, Lenny Kravitz and Jeff Buckley, have been added wholesale to my bloating music library. Even my father has been gleefully helping himself to re-mastered albums by the Beetles, Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, not to mention Johnny Cash's American Quadrology albums. Some of these vinyl records have been sitting on the shelf in my father's room. Now he's enjoying all of them in restored digital glory.

I had imagined a flood of music downloads when iTMS was first announced in the US. The wait for such a service to be offered in Singapore and Australia, have left Mac Users in this region feeling like loyal outsiders wanting in to the family.

However I am in no way trivializing the labyrinth copyright issues plaguing such online initiatives. A look at how long it is taking Apple to bring iTMS to Europe as a whole, is a good indicator of the amount of bureaucracy governing intellectual property rights and revenue.

An Arm and a Leg
But even if iTMS were available in the Asia Pacific region, how much would purchased music cost between them? Using US Dollars as the ballpark currency, lets take the 48-track, 3-disc Music Bank compilation from Alice in Chains as a comparison.

iTMS would cost you 47.52 US Dollars. That is 48 tracks multiplied by 0.99 US Cents per track. Don't forget that it comes in only one flavor for now, 128kpbs AAC. Apple is rumored to offer Lossless encoding in the future.

AoMP3 would set you back by 3.548 US Dollars with all tracks encoded at 192kpbs AAC VBR. That works out to be 0.01 US Cent per megabyte for the entire 352MB download!

So even though you will not be the proud owner of the extras that come with these CD box sets, you can still enjoy every riff, torn out of screeching guitars by your favorite metal band.

In Shackles and Chains?
The most obvious question is whether this operation is legal. Apart from the usual statements on privacy and terms of use, there is no indication that the material offered at AoMP3 is properly licensed.

The one reference made would be License # LS-3M-03-79 of the Russian Multimedia and Internet Society but that doesn't clue us in as to whether the Internet transmittion of such material requires the authorization of the copyright owner.

With its rising profile in the music downloads community, there may be pressure from record companies and legal organizations to urge a revamp of Russia's copyright laws. However with other issues of priority, this one may not figure high on the list of pressing concerns at the moment.

So it is anyone's guess as to how long AoMP3 would remain in business. Naturally such issues would not factor in with users, who are happy to have found a source of quality music going for a song.

posted by Teutoburg @ 2:40 PM