Listen.com to offer legal CD-burning - finally
Posted on 24/10/02 15:16 by Jan Willem                             
Listen.com to offer legal CD-burning - finally

While we can think of many legal reasons to burn a CD, ZDNet has published an article with the headline that Listen.com will start to offer legal CD-burning. What they mean is that Listen.com has expanded their service with the download of files that are not restricted to only listening, but also can be burned to a CD.

The service is still expensive though, a song will cost 0.99 cent, which may sound cheap, but considering the fact that a lot of costs for the record companies fall away, still doesn't seem to be a fair price. It's however a step in the right direction.


A new version of Listen's Rhapsody service that includes the CD-burning function will be released next week, with the ability to burn custom CDs using songs from Universal Music, Warner Music Group, and nearly two dozen independent labels. While that leaves many popular artists out of the mix, it will include current favorites such as Eminem and Beck.

While these songs can later be "ripped" by subscribers and turned into MP3 files, Listen itself is not offering direct downloads through Rhapsody. It has the licences to offer "tethered" downloads -- similar to files offered by Pressplay and MusicNet which put restrictions on copying and transfering to other devices -- but has decided to avoid this path for now, executives say.

"We don't want to wind up introducing something that winds up confusing consumers," said Dave Williams, Listen's vice president of product management. The CD still matters most, he added. "Our research shows that most consumers who download do so with the primary end goal of burning CDs


If the prices are a little lower and the files are unrestricted, these services are certainly a fair opposite of the file sharing networks that offer pirated downloads. But still a lot of people will prefer those, simply because they don't want to pay, or can't get a creditcard...

Source: ZDnet.co.uk

Reactions
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By straydog34, Thursday 24 October 2002 16:05
Frown Frown No way guys!!! Do the math.... 99 cents per song, I don't know about you, but I can fit anywhere from 1 to 21 songs per disk, plus the cost of the disk and the time involved in downloading,... NO WAY! Get a clue!
By Guest, Thursday 24 October 2002 17:27
It's still pricey, but doing straydog's math you get to pay around $20-22 for a CD, but at least the songs are the songs you like, contrary to the pletorah of ONE-HIT-WONDERS around....a CD with one decent song and the rest is crap. For the people who will be willing to pay I believe this price will be fair. I won't spend $20 on american artist songs...LOL....there are not even close to 20 decent songs in the last few years playing around.:4
By Guest, Thursday 24 October 2002 21:29
Erm...you do the math. You are paying 99c for a *LOSSY* format that is not as good as the original. I doubt they encode them at the best bitrates either. Also *YOU* are paying for the media, the time to search, download and compile then burn it. You also do not get any printed packaging. And you can get it elsewhere for free and ptobably a better quality version. No competition.
By WRFan, Friday 25 October 2002 05:05
20 songs on a cdr makes 20 dollars. are they crazy or what? that's what you pay in the shop for a cd! and if you buy a cd, you don't have to download, burn, pay for a cdr, so basically you lose money and time! if you download from fasttrack, you lose some time, but it's free! but to lose money AND time?! no, they must be crazy, most definitely; or they believe us to be either crazy or stupid. but we are not. I am staying on fasttrack
By Guest, Friday 25 October 2002 10:39
Great!! Wink But count me out. I am not gonna pay extra to burn. What a load of crap. My tip: add "web" to the url and invest 51 cents more. For a US dollar and a half you can download and burn as many tracks as your connection can handle during 8 hours. That's the way (aha aha)i like it, (aha aha), as far as legit downloading is concerned. And don't you dare to nag and reply "I am not going to pay at all,as long as I can get it for free" Once you have tried http://www.weblisten.com/en I am sure you will go there more often to get your full albums. Stick Out Tongue
By Seán, Friday 25 October 2002 16:38
SeánIf you download a complete album, it will cost at least the price or even more than purchasing it in the shop. You end up with a CD with quality not sounding like the shop version and you don't get any CD in-lets or colour printed CD Frown That's not even counting the cost & time spent online getting the content! Sorry, it's back to P2P for students & low income users and the Shops for those with deep pockets.
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