I bought a CD album today. Next time, I’m going vinyl.

Published 1 year, 8 months ago by Rob Abbott

Sigh, AllOfMp3…oh how I miss you.

We were so good together, never have I valued a relationship like ours. I know you really tried to make it work, we both fought so hard to and we tried the alternatives, but eventually the unexpected happens…the 3rd party arrives, and evicts us from our relationship.

You’re gone but the love remains strong.

That’s right I was an AllOfMP3 user. Before that I was an iTunes frequent $hopper and many times before that a P2P Mp3 file sharing addict (Napster, Morpheous and Kazaa).

I would say I’m breaking even in my music acquisitions, both paid and unpaid. AllOfMp3 just subsidized my spending and freed me from the evils and hassles of DRM.

Interesting Fact: John Legend sheet music costs on average $3.50 per song. His songs cost on average $0.99, some of which can be found for free distribution.

AllOfMp3 is the best platform for buying Mp3’s. Unfortunately, it is disputed that transactions made on the platform are not compensating the artist and music labels nor is the compensation sufficient enough to pay for the distribution rights for the media.

In other words, it is discounted all you share music where you only need to pay for the electronic distribution and encoding costs.

Life goes on and so does my music addiction.

Who benefits from this addiction and who are my new suppliers? iTunes, Best Buy (brick & motar stores) and LaLa.

I honestly like the last item. LaLa has similar benefits to AllOfMp3, but with a few advantages and disadvantages.

The disadvantages leave us with slow delivery of music (null convenience factor), encoding time increase (importing songs into your computer in Mp3 format) and limited availability & selection (no immediate releases).

Well, I can live with that. It’s better than paying $0.99 a song with DRM.

Yes, if you’re wondering, LaLa is cheaper.

It’s very simple; you dust off all your old CD albums and list them in your library on LaLa. Other users of LaLa browse for music that they like and request the music they want.

Those requests pull from an availability list and if there’s a match it notifies both the requester and the supplier that a transaction can take place.

The supplier simply agrees to send the CD to the requester for a fee, $1 (plus $0.75 shipping). That’s right, an entire album WAV encoded. That’s a deal.

The fee covers the shipping costs, plus 20% goes to the artist and the supplier is credited with the Karma Points. These points represent your reliability to ship in a timely manner and that your media is playable.

The lower the Karma Points, the less likely someone is willing to trade with you.

I love Karma

It’s a media swap shop!

Now the advantages, some of which I have mentioned above. For starters it’s much, much cheaper and you get the best sound quality for the price. Better than AllofMp3. Second, you can finally get rid of the CDs you’ve been keeping around because your local music store isn’t there to buy them back from you (sorry Tower Records, minus a few thriving inner city indie stores). You wouldn’t want to sell it back anyway. Not when each playable CD can be swapped on a social network where you’re able to get new music at the cost of a dollar.

There are more obvious advantages but I think that’s compelling enough.

Today was interesting; I was driving back from Palo Alto to San Francisco when my iPod battery died. My car charger was no where to be found, so since I can’t function for long without music I stopped by Barnes & Noble in PA. There I bought the overpriced Red Hot Chili Peppers: Stadium Arcadium album. A “Grammy Nominated Artist and Album” sticker had been stuck right on the front. It must be worth the $18.99…I’m getting two CDs, the Album cover, booklet and artwork right?

I don’t think it’s a fair price. The artist rarely gets more than $0.50 per album sold; the rest is absorbed through the label and its many, many layers of monetization.

Not bad for some paper and plastic worth at production costs of no more than $1.

What’s a fair price? I’d say $11 for two discs, just my opinion!

Well, the album has now been burned into my iTunes and it will be soon posted to LaLa for availability. It is a relatively small price to pay to rebuild an album collection in order to get myself into the LaLa swapping game.

Swap burn repeat.

rob.

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