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the key word is "rent". not "own". or even "buy". /.: http://slashdot.org/articles/01/12/04/1335214.shtml Rent Music Over the Net Posted by michael on Tuesday December 04, @08:43AM from the none-of-this-rent-to-own-stuff-either dept. NerveGas writes: "Financial Times is reporting that two competing services, both backed by major music labels, are about to offer legal music downloads. For $9.95 per month, you can download up to 100 songs per month. The catch? Cancel your service, and you lose the ability to hear *any* of the songs that you've downloaded. There are other caveats, as well - but at least it's a start." So what happens after you've got your hard drive filled with rented music and the monthly fee goes up to $199.95/month? Pay up, or lose it all... http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT34SL8SSUC&live=true&tagid=ZZZLZDL1B0C&Collid=ZZZT22LCC0C The service by RealNetworks and its MusicNet unit is one of two major online music ventures to be released before Christmas. The other is Pressplay, an internet music service established by Sony and Vivendi Universal. Both orignally had been expected to be released in late summer, but a maze of legal issues slowed the plans. [ I'll bet !! ] If a subscriber to RealOne Music lets his membership lapse, he loses access to music that was already downloaded. In effect, this means subscribers are renting the music more than actually buying it. [ I see a new market for small devices that plug in between PC and speakers, and digitize the stream, and feed it back into a serial port ] Neither service will allow users to transfer songs to portable devices or to CDs -- both considered essential features by many online music fans. "The ability to copy songs freely and to move them to portable devices are paramount to users, but these permissions will not be granted with the first launch of MusicNet and Pressplay," a study by research firm Jupiter finds. While both services are expected to offer about 100,000 songs when they launch, subscribers to one service will not be able to hear songs on the rival. This is a significant drawback, although executives from both services say these problems will be worked out soon. [ and it will cost you ! ]
