The Digital Life: WE7 By Amanda on January 31, 2008 9:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
I sampled a couple of the lesser legal digital download services last week. OK, I sometimes grab a single song from an MP3 blog and sometimes augment my own posts with music. But I never download whole albums or just go grab whatever I want from bittorrent. Although as this article shows you could P2P every minute of the day for the next thirty years and still not be a fraction of the thief the major record labels have been, I still think you have to support the models that are adapting to the real world. And no, I don't include those dodgy Russian sites. Anyway. I already have two accounts on eMusic for 190 tracks a month and there's nothing out there that competes with it for price and range, but have found some interesting things.
First up, WE7. The model here is that each song can be downloaded free but has a short ad at the beginning. After a month you can go back and download the songs (still free) without the ad, to a maximum of 20 songs a month. Like all these services offering DRM-free tracks and trying to shake up the models, the problem is getting content, especially from the majors or bigger indies. WE7 has a very sparse country selection but a pretty good blues one. My first 20 downloads are below. I really don't get Patty Griffin in any deep way but I'm told the fault is entirely my end so I'll keep trying.
The number of downloads is unlimited, but you can only ad-strip 20 a month. CNET says it's doomed. I don't mind the ads, and they seem a lot shorter than 10 seconds to me. However all the ads thus far are for ... WE7 itself which makes me wonder how they're travelling in the whole "attract advertisers" side of things. Last week they made a show of promoting the capital they have raised so we'll see. Another obvious problem is that it's extremely simple to snip the ads from the tracks yourself. How to assure advertisers they're even being heard? But that is for counters of beans other than my own. Meantime: music free and legal.
By Shaun
on February 1, 2008 12:06 AM
Interesting. mp3?
By Shaun
on February 1, 2008 12:15 AM
Hmm, some of the blues ain't legit releases. I gotta a problem with that.
By Amanda
on February 1, 2008 5:55 AM
Meaning?
By Shaun
on February 1, 2008 11:34 PM
The issue I have with non-legit blues releases is that the money doesn't go to the artists' themselves or, in the case of legends, their estate.
About a decade ago, I did some minor work in documenting official and non-official Son House releases for his manager, Dick Waterman. This was so that he could kill the bootlegs going around whose royalties, by rights, should be going to his family (Son House's wife Evie was still alive at the time), not some dodgy label. Dick Waterman did a lot of this for the older blues artists.
It is an important issue for blues artists whose music has often been repackaged again and again over the years with out any of them seeing a dime.
So it is something I dislike. If you like the blues, try and track down the proper releases.
I also get the feeling that WE7 has a few dodgy releases in all categories. My line is that if you buy music online it should be legit but don't take that as supporting corporate thugs such as the RIAA. Downloading is not what is hurting the music industry. But that is another story.
By Phineas
on February 2, 2008 6:18 AM
And just how would one tell a legitimate mp3 from a non-legitimate mp3?
Do they smell different?
Not to be too sarcastic, but I don't think that even people going out of their way to legally acquire their music online -- when they could just as easily be stealing it -- have the resources or inclination to determine the provenance of everything they buy.
But thanks for another potential source of guilt!
By Amanda
on February 2, 2008 11:30 AM
Well, I am on board with the money going to the artists but I also don't know how you can decide which is which -- unless its an obviously audience-recorded boot. But even in that case, how do you know what the financial arrangements behind the scenes are? Particularly when rights and imprints are sold and re-sold many times over. I'm also thinking in particular of the small European labels which have alot of often obscure blues. I would suspect they are much more vigilant about seeing the money goes to the right place than Columbia ever was.
The generic blues packages on WE7 don't look any different to me than what I can walk down to Fish Records in Newtown right now and buy for $10 each.
By Shaun
on February 2, 2008 11:58 AM
Phineas, you hold you mp3s up to the light and look for the watermark. ;-)
I definitely don't want to place a guilt trip on everyone. I bet if I went through my blues collection albums of dubious sources purchased over the years would surface. I'd say albums on iTunes or eMusic are a good bet though I'm sure some smaller labels have crept in with dodgy releases (UK label Charly was notorious for this).
Willie Dixon's Blues Heaven foundation was set up to assist with helping blues artists recover lost royalties.
You are right Amanda re the blues packages online and in the stores. And that is part of the trouble. To be honest I have no real solution. Just that since I've been involved in helping stamp out some bootlegs I aware of the problem and it irks me.
Re Colombia, that was the label that Son House was on and I know he got the money he deserved. From what I have heard, the smaller labels tend to be less inclined to seek out who owes what money.