Virgin Media to Launch World's First Unlimited Music Download Service

[Pushkar]

Heard alot of you saying £5-10 quid would be alright, yeah even i'd pay that; but then again I could just sign up to Spotify Premium (or even keep it free).

Also it's only Universal - quite a few artists, but not the whole world, compared to Spotify which has quite a bit, including Universal.

Cost wise, it will be £20/month, which is just under the cost of 'a couple of albums' a month.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Ben Mcr

So again I ask for a link where to has a confirmed plan for 'data mining'

Do you honestly think your going to get one. That would stand in the way of a good nonfactual RANT

Lets be honest news has been a bit slow on the Virgin media side, Let them all get in a feeding frenzy over this. Its fun to watch.

But don't expect this ranting frenzy to hit the high of the "lets report them for telling us we can download spider man off the net "

And for those that don't remember that ranting thread here you go

Right, before this gets any further can we please STOP discussing Phorm in this thread. It will only end in tears.

The topic is VM offering music downloads and the way they will operate/police them.

[stewlewis]

Will this be part of our standard broadband package:

• Will these downloads count towards download limits?
• Most of the heavy downloaders are collectors and not music fans, how heavy will these collectors hit this service in the hope of owning the whole Universal catalogue? (be the first, buy the 50Mb and hammer it, then cancel)
• Will these downloaders kill my bandwidth?
• With no DRM would it be legal to download some music and share it with another subscriber to this service?
• What bitrate, format options?

The heaviest downloaders don't listen to the music as fans, don't watch the films as buffs, don't use the software productivly. It's all about who has the biggest collection, who gets the release the quickest, who has a copy of the most expensive, who makes the rip and gets known worldwide.

It's the new sticker album collection, it's the new graffiti.

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by stewlewis

Will this be part of our standard broadband package:

Don't know yet but doesn't seem like it

Will these downloads count towards download limits?

Quite likely

Most of the heavy downloaders are collectors and not music fans, how heavy will these collectors hit this service in the hope of owning the whole Universal catalogue? (be the first, buy the 50Mb and hammer it, then cancel)

And I'm sure that has been factored into the agreements and the pricing

Will these downloaders kill my bandwidth?

No more than they do at the moment

With no DRM would it be legal to download some music and share it with another subscriber to this service?

Unlikely as the agreement on download will be to you personally. If the other person wants a copy they can download it themselves

What bitrate, format options?

Don't know yet

The heaviest downloaders don't listen to the music as fans, don't watch the films as buffs, don't use the software productivly. It's all about who has the biggest collection, who gets the release the quickest, who has a copy of the most expensive, who makes the rip and gets known worldwide.

It's the new sticker album collection, it's the new graffiti.

What would be the point of downloading all the music if you weren't going to listen to it? You wouldn't be able to give it to anyone else legally. So all you get is a hard drive full of stuff you don't want

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

What would be the point of downloading all the music if you weren't going to listen to it? You wouldn't be able to give it to anyone else legally. So all you get is a hard drive full of stuff you don't want

Some must download the whole of the internet, I know i tried it

[stewlewis]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

What would be the point of downloading all the music if you weren't going to listen to it? You wouldn't be able to give it to anyone else legally. So all you get is a hard drive full of stuff you don't want

Like i said, it's all about collectors. It has nothing to do with real fans. I dare say most of the internet traffic is not 'real'.

School yard, who has the biggest collection of MP3s, they'll never listen to them all. Who is the first to find a copy of the latest album/film. Who makes the first rip themselves and tags it and how many people download it, how far around the world has it gone. (like virus writers). If a collector has rare downloads etc. he/she could trade with friends.

Legitimate fans buy the media because they want the quality. They want the package. They want the uncompressed surround sound HD movie. They won't use this service. They'll use the free ones for background music.

Middle of the road music listeners and film viewers may use this service, they don't care about 128k background music quality or they have their DVD player hooked up to the biggest plasma they could afford via scart or composite. The aren't the most Tech Savvy and they probably bought and IPod without considering sound quality.

The collectors, internet graffiti writers never gave a damn about legalities anyway and still won't. One or 2 may use this service to grab a massive collection fast, but they'll just share it anyway via other means.

If Walmart charged an entrance fee and everything was free there'd be loads of folks who raped the store of all it's good rather than popping back when they needed someting. Just cus they can...................

[nffc]

Originally Posted by v0id

Why pay a subscription fee, when you can listen to the universal catalogue and more with Spotify for free? :/

Spotify hardly has any music anyway, since the big labels don't have the quality music normally, it's all old recordings and crossover.

Originally Posted by BenMcr

Probably, but then I bet the ones you download from places like Amazon and 7Digital also have that in

Yes but you can remove it with a tag editor.

[caph]

Just thought I'd add a quick plug for EMusic, since it mainly seems to exist under the radar but seems to be what quite a few people are asking for.

It's got a huge amount of non-mainstream music (or non-crap as I see it) for about £2 an album, but the most important point to me is the extra effort they put in to hiring proper music journalists to write loads of reviews. You can spend ages on the site following official and customer reviews, taking journeys through sub-genres.

And best of all it's all DRM-free. It is a subscription based service with a set number of downloads rather than an unlimited service but then realistically how many new albums can you give a decent listen to every month, plus I find choosing albums part of the fun of experiencing new music.

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by stewlewis

Legitimate fans buy the media because they want the quality. They want the package. They want the uncompressed surround sound HD movie. They won't use this service. They'll use the free ones for background music.

So they won't use this service which will allow them to do whatever they like with the music forever and get as much of it as they wan't - but will use iTunes will allows someome to play it on a PC or an iPod and nothing else (barring the more expensive DRM free tracks) and will cost more to get the same amount of music

Middle of the road music listeners and film viewers may use this service, they don't care about 128k background music quality or they have their DVD player hooked up to the biggest plasma they could afford via scart or composite. The aren't the most Tech Savvy and they probably bought and IPod without considering sound quality.

As the BBC points out though, a parent could subscribe to the service on behalf on the family, but the kids could then use it to download what they want onto their phones, MP3 players, iPods etc.

The collectors, internet graffiti writers never gave a damn about legalities anyway and still won't. One or 2 may use this service to grab a massive collection fast, but they'll just share it anyway via other means.

And if they do, they will get the other end of this which is the stick. As has been noted it is very likely that the MP3s will have a traceable watermark to tie it back to original customer.

They then won't have to prove how you shared it, the fact it got shared in the first place will be enough.

---------- Post added at 18:23 ---------- Previous post was at 18:22 ----------

Originally Posted by nffc

Yes but you can remove it with a tag editor.

The watermark doesn't have to be in the tag - it could be embedded in the audio itself - it's not difficult to do

[Bonglet]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

Well

1) Virgin will not and do not block or suspend the service for legal downloads. What they are talking about in connection with this, as far I read it, is that if a download is verified as being illegal obtained then a notice would be given to cease doing so. If it continued then further action would be taken - which may involve temporary suspension of services

2)Any costs of maintenance is already covered by the subscription fee.

3)Please can you link to a confirmed plan for virgin to 'data mine' anyones connection

4)As for the 'free reign' I'm pretty sure what they are talking about is trying to identify those people that illegally download content. You seem quite upset that a company like Phorm could possible be breaking the law with their technology, but seem fine with people actually breaking the law by downloading stuff they haven't paid for

1) In answer to your earlier post how is any file i download to be verified and by whom and how its a bit scant on the details here for some reason.

2) Its about upgrading the network not running it 2 different things there.

3) you answered your own question in 4

4) Yeah i break the law downloading my paid for games through steam whats that im traffic shaped now my ping sucks more too thanks for the qos vm.

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by Bonglet

1) In answer to your earlier post how is any file i download to be verified and by whom and how its a bit scant on the details here for some reason.

Well so far it seems to be the rights holder of the thing that has been illegally downloaded.

Obviously the full technical details of how that works have yet to be revealed

2) Its about upgrading the network not running it 2 different things there.

No they are not. You subscription pays for both

[stewlewis]

I agree that a subscription based service is the way things need to go.
We need a one-box media solution, and a wireless media on the go solution.

Money should be made for music artists and film makers with the sale of media at a higher quality than can be had over the net. Uncompressed Blu-Ray, SACD/DVD-A/DTS-CD with too much data to share for those fans that want it. That is until broadband speeds catch up again. Then there's ticket sales.

It ain't what it used to be, the music business will no longer be a business. Studio time costs a bomb, nah I can do it at home with a 1000 pound PC. They're clinging onto ways of making money.

Tivo type TV viewing will mean we all miss out the ads too. There goes that revenue.

TV, Movies, MP3's, Radio will ALL be free under the subscription.
Quality will be paid for, the above is just advertisement for it.

Big music artists are a thing of the past. Home artists and internet stars are the future.
Then again stars will be a thing of the past too.

We're not there yet and these changes, this service won't make much difference.

[one2escape]

This is only the start of things to come. Like poster above TV and movies will end up doing something similar. Just look at the next PSP completely digital distribution. We will end up paying subscriptions for everything we want. TV providers like Virgin and Sky will have to adapt as you will end up just dealing with the content providers. It will all end up as IPTV. Anyways I will getting this when comes out!

[Morden]

Virgin media dont need phorm to track what is being downloaded on their network. the operative word is computer their network. As we are all connected to Virgins Network to get our internet all they require are tools to they already possess to track network use by reading the logs/packet sniffers. These sort of tools give you bandwidth used, what sort of traffic is being used ip source ip destination etc etc.

Example :- http://lachniet.com/cheaplogging/