LimeWire Store Opens for Business
Written by enigmax on March 17, 2008LimeWire has just launched a beta version of its online store, requiring no additional software and offering DRM-free MP3 music downloads for as little as $0.27 per track.
A message on the LimeWire Store frontpage reads: “Welcome to the LimeWire Store: We’re so new, we’re beta!”
A little late, but open for business today, the LimeWire Store Beta is here offering a web browser-based interface for downloading music. Even though the same people are behind the LimeWire P2P client, the system is centralized, with the company hosting the MP3s on its own servers.
No subscription is required to use the store and tracks can also be paid for individually at $0.99 each, but there are significant savings to be had with some of the pre-paid plans. The ‘Platinum’ plan offers the best price, offering 75 ‘Download Credits’ for $19.99 a month, which works out to $0.27 per track. ‘Download Credits’ can be purchased using a Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover credit cards.
Right now, the store is a browser based experience for anyone running Internet Explorer 6 & 7, Firefox, Safari or Opera, but in the future the store will also be integrated into the LimeWire client. In an interview with Slyck last year, LimeWire said of the integration:
Our plan with the LimeWire Store is to add to the LimeWire experience–we’re not going to take anything away. We think purchase links should appear alongside Gnutella search results, similar to how Google keeps sponsored links separate. We believe a significant number of users will choose to purchase content if the presentation is convenient and unobtrusive, the price is right, and the product isn’t hindered by DRM.
True to their word, all the tracks are being offered as DRM-free 256kbps VBR (variable bitrate) MP3s. However, due to the dreaded ‘licensing issues’, LimeWire Store is only available to US customers at the moment.
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due to the dreaded ‘licensing issues’
it seems there’s all ways ussues with this some where, well at least they are trying and the price does sound right and the price they are asking for. most of all it’s DRM free.
So…did I miss something? Haven’t used LimeWire for a while but given the choice between buying a DRM-free track and downloading a DRM free track in whatever format I want for free, why do they think people will bother with their store?
Then again, I haven’t used LW in years, so I’m not up on what they’re playing at
Thats kinda cool i guess…
That’s kind of… irony, lol xD
Booo!
This is the wrong way to go. It’s just like itunes. It doesn’t have the selection that p2p has, and you still pay too much. The only business models that are able to compete with piracy are voluntary collective licensing and/or pay-what-you-want downloads.
At least they have higher quality drm free mp3s. That’s a start.
What is Limewire?
Just kidding but why would people use this when they can use torrents? It seems shitty but people won’t want to pay for music with Limewire when they’re using Limewire to get music for free. Does this make sense to anybody?
Listening to mp3’s in 2008 is just plain stupid (you like to listen to music full of holes ? I don’t), flac is winning every day, and PAYING for mp3’s is completely insane
Too bad you can’t tell the difference between a proper V0 rip and FLAC. Holes my ass
Listening to mp3s in 2008 is the same as listening to them any other year previously, for casual day to day listening there is nothing wrong with mp3.
FLAC and other formats are great for archiving but not practical for every day use as you well know, i don’t even know why i’m bothering typing this.
nice features, but when it available for asian country?
well paying for music through limewire is going to confuse people. Any yes most people cannot tell the difference between and an MP3 Track, even if the CD is retail! Plus the CD is “missing” parts it is not completely lossless as it stands anyway.
MP3 Players are serving there part for the casual walk to work, drive to work listening to the music you want to here…
To use FLAC for the same archieve for casual listening you would need probably around (working on a FLAC album is around 350MB and MP3 is around 60MB) 10 times the amount of space…
Yes FLAC is better on paper but in reality you just won’t be able to tell the difference…
kinda ironic that limewire opens a store… the price still is just a tad too high for my liking, at something like 15c I’d be more tempted to buy a song.
The only ones to really get it right were allofmp3.com and that got shut down- so I think I’ll stick to my free p2p
pay?!
Sounds like a Good Idea but as long as there is an ‘as good’ range of tracks that you can find on torrents/limewire and it becomes available to the rest of the world soon!
This IS the way it has to go!
this is gonna fall on it’s arse.
who uses limewire any more nowadays anyway?
i can guarantee the artists won’t see a cent of their $0.27 per track so you might as well get the torrent. or buy the CD.
@15
What are you basing that guarantee on?
[quote comment="313193"]@15
What are you basing that guarantee on?[/quote]
the fact that a lot of artists don’t see a penny from iTunes sales, which are way more expensive. $0.27 is just not enough money for any substantial amount to filter down to the artist.
I think it’s good - in theory. Its nice to see people putting the effort in for providing legal alternatives to piracy. But there’s one major problem : the population of the US is estimated at around 300 million. The population of the world is estimated at around 6.6 billion. Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t that work out to around 6.3 billion people that CAN’T use this legal alternative?
I, for one, would willingly fork out a few bucks/euros/pounds (depending on where I’m living at the time) to legally download my favorite movies, TV shows and music. But there’s no avenue for me to do so! So I’m forced into piracy. Its that or nothing, and frankly, I’ll choose the illegal media over no media.
This page is still called “Torrent”Freak, right?!
Or in other words: Who cares?
[quote comment="313151"]So…did I miss something? Haven’t used LimeWire for a while but given the choice between buying a DRM-free track and downloading a DRM free track in whatever format I want for free, why do they think people will bother with their store?
Then again, I haven’t used LW in years, so I’m not up on what they’re playing at[/quote]
Because of the legality of it. If the download is straight from their servers it won’t even look like P2P activity to your ISP, it’s supporting the band, it’s not stealing… Just because your moral values are low enough for you to steal without consideration doesn’t mean everyone is like that.
…I like Limewire for downloading one-zees/two-zees, I bitTorrent for when I want a whole album or discography. I feel too guilty downloading lossless; I wish there was a way I could pay for that. The kind of music I like was mastered during the vinyl years anyway, vinyl’s headroom is only 128k. And even if it wasn’t, I don’t have the space to store lossless.
As far as DRM MP3s, that doesn’t bother me, because I can just play ‘em in iTunes on my Mac, with Audio Hijack recording ‘em in the background, stripping out DRM, then I just add metadata/cut down sample rate and copy ‘em back to my server. :)
[quote comment="313217"]Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t that work out to around 6.3 billion people that CAN’T use this legal alternative?[/quote]But how many of those 6.3 billion even have internet? Even though the US is a measly 300 million, we’re one of (if not the) largest consumers in entertainment.
I appreciate what Limewire is doing, but nah, I’m not going to use it. I don’t have a credit card, for one; and like someone said, it’s hard to imagine artists really benefiting at all from us buying off Limewire.
From this article, I think I’d mention this to anyone that wanted to download individual songs (but too impatient to figure out bittorrent) because at least they’re promoting quality, rite.
You’ve got to be kidding me, LimeWire seriously sucks…
[quote comment="313157"]Booo!
This is the wrong way to go. It’s just like itunes. It doesn’t have the selection that p2p has, and you still pay too much. The only business models that are able to compete with piracy are voluntary collective licensing and/or pay-what-you-want downloads.
At least they have higher quality drm free mp3s. That’s a start.[/quote]
well, look at it this way. now that theres more competition for buisness models such as these (for itunes, etc), maybe prices will drop? :)
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