We7: free music downloads + ads
We7 is a new venture, currently in beta, that offers free, legally downloadable music. The catch is that each track is prefaced with a brief (10 second) audio advertisement. There are currently only a few tracks available, but they’re from relatively well-known artists e.g. Herbie Hancock, Hall and Oates and Coolio. This may well be evidence of the sort of backing for this project (Peter Gabriel is the big name). The music is DRM-free. The We7 website states that relevant ads will be attached to the track on download so that they can be targeted according to user demographics.
When I registered with the website, the technology worked smoothly and I was able to download and play a Herbie Hancock track without a problem. The advertisement consisted of a female voice stating “I’ll pay for a download when I die, until then… We7″. I’d rather not have had to listen to it, but it was brief and pretty painless. The business model is certainly innovative - it will be interesting to see whether it succeeds when it launches properly this summer.
Link: We7
Via: Soundtracking
May 26th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
I guess my other comment was a bit too much for the moderator.
I’ll do the ultra-short version then:
DRM = Digital Restrictions Management.
Restricting editing (like preventing removal of the ad) is DRM.
This is not a DRM free solution.
May 26th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Thanks for your comments anon - your previous post didn’t get caught in moderation but in WordPress’s spam filter from which I’ve just rescued it. I suspect it was the frustration expressed in your subject line that did it! I’ll post it after this one.
May 26th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Anon wrote:
As if it’s not bad enough that you can’t go anywhere without seeing advertising (look around you and see how many brand names you can see), it’s holding music to ransom too.
People want music for free. We live in a democracy. Why are our tax dollars not being used to fund musicians? And I don’t mean a couple of bucks here and there, I mean enough to keep them clothed, housed, fed and provide access to instruments. “Oh but that costs too much”… Ahhhh, how much did we spend on wars this year, again? Do politicians recieve average wages? Do corporates pay equal taxes to individuals? I won’t go on, but this kind of corruption is why terrorists hate us and we have to fight the aforementioned wars.
At least it’s DRM free… But what format? High quality WAV, like CD or DVDA? I doubt it…I’m tired of being fed second rate material in order to avoid solving the real problems (see above)
It’s just a matter of time before someone makes a tool to automatically slice out the ad, rendering the service undesirable to advertisers. The only way around that, is to make the ad blend into the music, which will drive away customers… But wait a minute…
“with We7 technology, after a period of time (4 weeks) you will have the choice to have the track ‘ad free’.”
If we’re downloading the track how do they prevent us from editing it? I guess it’s streamed, or savved in a proprietry format. I thought it was DRM free? DRM is Digital Restrictions Management, and if we can’t edit them then that is a restriction, so this is not DRM free at all. I call false advertising.
As musicians we should also consider that if we can’t download the track, and we can’t edit it, we can’t sample it either.
Doomed. Unless people are suckers… Hmmmm… I guess time will tell
May 26th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Oh thanks
My bad! That’s a strong filter, I’ll be more careful in future.
I hope someone will have a nice constructive flipside to my negative kneejerk, there’s two sides to every story, and I’m sure I’m not the only person subscribed to this blog
May 26th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
If it’s not MP3 or OGG then that is DRM. Period.
May 26th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
I can’t see how We7 could prevent editing, but suspect that the majority would just put up with the ad until the expiry date. In terms of people finding a way to remove ads automatically via some kind of open source app, I’m sure they will if this service does take off. The track I downloaded was in a standard mp3 format which I was able to open in Audacity and edit however I wanted.
I agree with you about the saturation of advertising and wouldn’t welcome its intrusion into my music (I seldom listen to music radio). However, as an opportunity to legally try out new music, it’s an interesting proposition.
May 26th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Anon - you’re right about the quietness of this blog, I’ve been hoping people would begin commenting at some point!
May 27th, 2007 at 12:30 am
“The track I downloaded was in a standard mp3 format” Well that’s promising! I wonder if that’s a “just for now while it’s in beta” kind of situation? The description on their site doesn’t match up with that…
You’re probably right about the ads as far as the majority goes, but personally I haven’t listened to any radio (online, on air, or otherwise) for over 8 years now, purely because of the ads… OK the questionable track selection didn’t help either
Well I know others are around, I came here by ‘word of mouth’ So I’ll try and make some noise to encourage the crowd
(What do you call word of mouth when it’s read, not heard? Sound of keys? Shape of text?
)
May 27th, 2007 at 10:08 am
We’ll have to see about the final format. I can’t imagine how it could be changed to anything proprietary without causing lots of other issues. I’m not a radio listener because I’m too busy listening to, or discovering, music that fascinates me, but then I’m a real music freak and I’m continually listening to a combination of new and favourite artists.
Comments always welcome! I’m off for a week now, but am going to make one more post before I go.