Any song... 88 cents

[RBatson]

I heard this a couple weeks ago and its true. You can download any song for 88 cents from www.Walmart.com Cool! Just thought I'd share. Hard to believe Walmart is the first big commercial company I've seen do this.. I guess its here to stay.

[Stang_Crazy]

That's a pretty good price!!

Since I have been running Ad-aware on my computer, I can't run Kazaa since it is supported by advertising. Walmart sounds like a pretty good solution!

[Capri306]

You're going to be seeing a LOT of price-warring in the coming year(s). First it was iTunes, MusicMatch, Rhapsody, Napster (owned by Roxio), now it's Walmart. Plans are in the works for Sony, Microsoft, Pepsi, and Buy.com to implement similar services. It's going to be interesting to see who survives the RIAA's price fixing, and I don't think P2P sharing will go away any time soon, either. The songs are still a bit pricey @ $0.99, IMHO, because you are making so many concessions with downloading: it exists only as a computer file, you are QUITE limited as to what you can actually DO with it once you have purchased it, and the record companies have basically done away with the physicalities of CDs which saves them a TON of money but gives us no break in price at all. Even at a buck a piece, most CDs have around 15 songs, which would be $15 for the whole CD, right? Plus, I'm not getting any cover art OR a case with online purchasing.

I just think there's better ways of doing things...though Walmart is moving in the right direction (so long as their inventory is good). I *almost* like the Canadian way, taxing CD-R blanks and allowing P2P filesharing. I don't think the tax thing fine and dandy, but it's a good start. Wow, never thought I'd agree with something Canada has done.

FYI, I'm never buying another Beatles album because of their non-participation in online music. Screw 'em, they've made enough money over the years anyway.

I hope I didn't come across as hating buying music online. I just think we have a long way to go before it is all sorted out.
I am FOR artists getting adequately compensated.
I am AGAINST the RIAA and their gestapo-style tactics for finding P2P'ers to sue, and getting the majority of the money you pay for CDs.

[BLACK85GT]

True if you like every song on a particular cd then it makes sense to just buy it from a store with the cover art, etc. But I think you might be missing the point on downloading music.
Most people, including myself, usually only like a few songs from each cd, so it makes sense to buy only the songs you want and not have to pay for the 14 other ones you dont care for. And a cd single from a store usually costs about $5 last time I checked (if its even available). So 99 cents is not bad. I can buy 10 songs that I want and not have to pay for 10 whole cd's of filler music.
Just do the math:
10 songs at .99 = $9.90. 10 cds at $9.99 = $99.90

Also I dont agree on taxing blank cd's. Many people don't use them for music, only data and backup so why tax them?
Just another opinion.

[mustardjohn]

On Rapsody you can down load a mix of songs. Depending on the age of the song they can be 69 cents. You can do whatever you want with song once you get it on your computer assuming you have the righ software and almost everyone does. Of course you have to pay ~$10/month for the total Rapsody service. I have it and enjoy it due to wide selection.

The new WinAmp 5.0 free down load is pretty good but limits your burn rates to 2x unless you pay $15 for the pro version. Windows media player is pretty good if you have a fire wall in place to keep it from sending everything you do to Microsoft.

I agree that P2P is not going away but god the spyware you get with a lot of it is awful. You need something like Pest Patrol to get rid of it all and that can delet the infected music track that was downloaded. P2P is getting pretty corrupt in terms of unwanted things that come with it, and they did sue a bunch of college/high school kids for file sharing. Some of the songs obtainable in this manner are not available any other way, however. Some older music has to be brought in off of old vinyl media and is not available in digital from any other source. Also work people have done on remix is not available anyother way either.

[mustardjohn]

Hey, if I am not mistaken Michael Jackson owns the rights to the Beatles songs. He out bid Paul McCartney who for some reason hada loan on them or something.

[Capri306]

Originally posted by mustardjohn
Hey, if I am not mistaken Michael Jackson owns the rights to the Beatles songs. He out bid Paul McCartney who for some reason hada loan on them or something.

Good point, I completely forgot about that! Funny, he might end up selling those rights after his legal fight that is about to ensue.

I see the point of picking songs one at a time instead of having to spend nearly $20 on an album, I'm just a broke college student and have been using P2P-ware for years. I think the best publicly available one is LimeWire simply because one scan with AdAware will keep the not-so-annoying popups from coming back.

At any rate, the system is finally -- I think -- coming around to balance. It's just too bad the [RIAA] and [ppl who don't ever want to pay a dime] threw it into such disarray.

88 cents ain't that bad. Sorry for beeeeeotching. Just can't stand the corporate/union/P2Pers' greed over MUSIC.

[RBatson]

Well, I just downloaded my first two songs the other night. Winamp wouldn't play them, said that the song was unlicensed and windows media said the same thing but gave a link.. click that and it automatically updated and worked fine(on wma). I think this is where the whole entertainment industry is headed. I bought my dad a 20gb 'jukebox'(by creative) for xmas and my wife got a Sony Minidisc walkman. My dad can plug the jukebox into his car radio, that I bought him for xmas 2 years ago(auxliary output). Its also useful for him because he works on a tugboat and can take the jukebox from home, listen to the music files on the drive to work(probably 10 hrs) and then transfer files from the jukebox to the computer on the tug once he gets there(its not just for music). I think in the future we will be downloading almost all our music and entertainment ei.movies from the internet. They have DVD players available now that play cdr, jpeg and wma files.

Walmart also has the option to download the whole album for cheaper than the .88 a song price. I bought the new Nickelback cd (16 songs, great cd btw) and it cost me over $14 and I could have downloaded the whole cd for $9.44. I like having the case and art and all that but the bottom line is the music. I honestly believe this is the future of home entertainment. I think, before too long, we will all carry our own hard drive filed with the **** that we personally love on it.

I've also believed for many years that the cable companies and phone companies would eventually merge.. guess we'll see.

[girlystang]

I tried to down load some songs last night and it worked. Thanks for the info. I have been traveling for my job. I am only home briefly before I leave again for overseas. Thanks for the song info. It gave me lots to do.

[tireburner163]

Sharing is caring.......**** the RIAA

-Josh, aka the tireburner

[1965GTO]

winmx is free, no spyware.