Mandy quango says Apple, Amazon are too obscure

Full research

Did they ask how many people could name a non-legal source of downloaded music? In my experience there aren't actually that many people who can.

audiophiles aren't catered for

I only buy from online stores that sell lossless formats. I wonder when amazon and/or itunes will catch up?

Love the Consumer Focus website

"About Us ... Consumer Focus has strong new legislative powers"

Wow. And I thought Parliament did that sort of thing.

Perhaps they mean "statutory powers". Maybe attention to detail isn't their strong point.

Ripe for the axe

I think I've just identified £35m in savings that Alastair can announce on Wednesday and saved the taxpayer from 100 people in non-jobs at the same time.

'Free' market economy

"We asked Consumer Focus why it was pushing an option that much of the market didn't really want..."

Because NuLabour don't believe in market forces? It's all so messy, untidy and not controlled by central government.

Online Songs

I have never bought a downloadable song from anywhere and probably never will unless things change a lot.

I buy the CD and then rip it to whatever format I want.

Reasoning

1. Normally cheaper or close to same cost.

2. If I have a hard drive failure I can re-rip or use a backup.

3. I get to choose how much definition I loose.

4. I control what machines I can put it on.

I wonder...?

How many people could name where to buy music in their town centre? Out of the whole population, I mean.

Must admit

that I find more music that I want to listen to on Amazon MP3 downloads that I do in my local (25 mile away) HMV store.

Even the majors, and I must admit that I can only think of HMV as remaining, having lost Virgin/Zavvi, MVC, Our Price (OK, I know it was a long time ago), and Woolies, and the jumped-up News Agents like WH Smiths and the Supermarkets, only stock items that they think they will sell. Hardly any back catalog at all.

I don't choose to listed to what the Music Industry think I want to listen to.

But I do miss analogue music formats. I'd probably still buy vinyl if I could!

If I want a song...

I Amazon it. Okay, it's MP3 but it is a respectable 256kbit. This might not be acceptable to those who use gold-plated audio leads into a serious amp... but I'm a child of the tape era listening to the song on my Zen. It is good enough for me.

What I'd like - slightly cheaper. I mean, 99c/song is not expensive, but if you pick'n'mix a CD's worth of songs (say, 10-12), it would cost more than a CD. Perhaps they could offer a reduction based upon units of 5? Just a thought...

I specifically like Amazon, and don't touch iTunes with a bargepole, as I am handing over my credit card details in return for a DRM-free MP3. My browser is good enough for the bank, it is good enough for Amazon (purchasing singley), it ought to be good enough for iTunes. Understand this, I am NOT a big music purchaser, I do _NOT_ want to waste my precious disc space (it's an eeePC so I don't have silly capacity for filling up with stuff like that) on some software to help me download music. I don't NEED help. Take my money and provide a link, anything else is just faffing around...

Furthermore, please _PLEASE_ sort out the cross-country licencing balls. The different Amazons list different MP3s. However, can I buy a track from the UK that isn't listed in French Amazon? Absolutely not. Yet, when I contacted Amazon US to ask about a DVD only listed there and if I could order it through my own Amazon, they said why, just set up an account with us and order direct. The two seem to be inconsistent to me. And, if I may have my 2c worth, idiocy like this is what is likely to cause people to look for less than legal downloading. I mean, do you think I *care* about what licencing issues the recording companies have? Sony, Universal, blah-de-blah, they're international giants right? So explain why we're still stuck with region-specific lists of music?

Maybe the government would be much better wasting taxpayers money encouraging the media companies to set up something like www.music.com (maybe that's taken, whatever...) in which all of the rightsholders list all of their music along with the price-per-track, and a raw WAV option for the audiophiles. No pay-per-bitrate, no annoying adverts, just a listing of pretty much everything that they have to offer (with the only region-specific difference being the currency displayed) which takes your cash and returns a list of links to personalised downloads. No requirement for specific software. Just a big global easy-to-use music site.

.

BTW, in reply to the suggestion of "why many people know a site for downloading music illegally"... would anybody need to? Surely it would suffice to just use a search engine? Visit our favourite search and type in "uk top 40" and wait a mo. You'll see it, fifth suggestion down - "uk top 40 torrent"...

ITunes

Put DRM all over your tracks and I simply won't buy them from you.

I pay for the music, it becomes mine and i'll do what I like with it. As long as I don't distribute it what's the issue?

surprised..

given that my taxes seem to be used to advertise an awful lot of things - like who the police are and when to call them and to sponsor "the business inspector", i'm quite relieved that they aren't proposing to spend my tax money teling people that amazon and iTunes exist

why can't people just look it up?

what exactly is supposed to happen?

are amazon and iTunes (who decides who) going to "encouraged" to advertise more?

are they going to mandated to?

"YOU MUST ADVERTISE"?

good god, can't the people who want to legally download music and don't know where to just... i don;t know.. look it up?

So...

How many people can rattle off the names of main streat music stores? How many of them buy music with any regularity? Oh right, this is government spin so accuracy in numbers, let alone the numbers mean anything at all, is not required.

Still and all, if the music industry wants monies for its music, it is not unreasonable to expect they sell the music, so they'd better back their (online) shops and make sure people know where to go to buy the music, ie advertising. Sounds sensibe to me. The sad thing is that this is the government telling the music industry it ought to do the bleeding obvious, and that this is apparently making sense, useful, and necessairy.

WTF

Those that don;t know about I tunes or Amazon.com are in a Cage . Were I live at you see Itunes adds and o ther apple products on buses, bill boards and on TV.

Lossless

When iTunes or Amazon start offering lossless downloads, preferably 24 bit and 96KHz or higher I will buy music from them. Until then it has to be CDs (or one of the few lossless download sites, but they tend to have a very very limited selection). Instead of trying to persuade consumers to buy something they don't want, Mandy should be trying to persuade music retailers to offer something consumers do want!

No DRM on iTunes music

fuzz/adam payne: iTunes doesn't have any music with DRM now. Everything is in iTunes+ format - 256kbps DRM-free AAC - and has been for very nearly a year.

Root vegetables

"Shopping online isn't much fun, either - it provides instant gratification but it isn't a Saturday afternoon social activity"

I don't know where you live Andrew, but round these parts physically shopping on a Saturday afternoon is about as much fun as having someone repeatedly beat your torso with a large bag of carrots. Then again, that's what you get from a culture that is still pointlessly wedded to '9 - 5, Mon - Fri'.

Not that stops anyone except for misanthropes like me, if Mr smarty pants from Consumer Focus wants to find the other 40% of his poor missing sheep, he might like to pop out one day and have a look at the queues in HMV.

Then again, he could look a at few pop histos and perhaps notice that figure probably encompasses all those who are to old, to young, to poor - or just plain don't want - to buy music on line.

I should think that Amazon and Apple will be over the moon with a 60% brand recognition.

No problem too trivial for NuLabour to stick their noses into

But lots of problems are too complex for NuLabour to understand, hence nothing is done about the things that really count.

That's NuLabour for you: stupid, small-minded, ignorant, unimaginative turds.

Undoubtedly this quango is staffed with idiots like those who promulgate the ludicrous, so-called "health and safety" rules. Horrible thought: NuLabour like quangoes as they provide a means of offering employment to the unqualified.

"Shopping online isn't much fun, either - it provides instant gratification but..."

Shopping online is often challenging. I know Amazon are pretty quick off the mark. I have a place that sells good ramen (horribly overpriced, but the Real Deal) that ships quickly.

You wanna read my list of online Fail? Certain home shopping catalogues on-line presences, woeful performance. A big chain not unlike a sort of PC World-meets-WHS has something I've had on order since the TENTH. Okay, it says there may be an 8(ish) day delay in handling the item I've chosen, but does this extend to the third day of not answering my query email? I gave them a virtual credit card number (the real card doesn't work online) and, foolish me, I had it expire at the end of the month. I figured twenty days ought to be enough to find one item, drop in it a Jiffy bag, sling it in the post. I guess I was wrong. If it passes into April with no news, I will let the card lapse, cancel the order, sulk like a child, and Google for alternatives.

My mother often says I shop like a girl. I like to browse, look at things, compare things. Shopping on-line is only useful, to me, for the various things for which no alternative exists.