and she said.. "how you interpret the dream is probably more important than the dream itself"

A little update on the online music bidness, as you know I enjoy babbling on about that..

Awhile ago I wrote about a new (new to me, but apparently a few years old) russian mp3 site called AllOfMP3.com. At the time it seemed like it was semi-legit, or pseudo-legal, or however you'd like to say it. Now, a new article in the Register raises some new light, pointing out that the governing body in Russia (ROMS) that AllOfMP3 has acquired a license from may no longer be the governing body anymore. Regardless, a FAQ here points out that chances are there is nothing the RIAA can do right now, legally speaking. In the future, this may change.

For now, I've burned through $20 and 2 gigs of music at 192kbps and I'm pleased as punch. The sound quality is groovy, the selection is decent, the download speeds are good enough for me (~40k on the top end) and it's cheap. 1 cent per megabyte cheap. I've used PayPal instead of entering my credit card information but it would seem nobody has had any problems using their credit card information yet - at least no claims exist anywhere on the internet that I could find.

Why not just use Kazaa? Well, I've been on an Apple iBook at home for a few years and there isn't much out there in the way of file-sharing programs for the mac. Plus, for ~3 cents per song I'm guaranteed that I'm getting the song I want, it's good quality, and I can find entire albums without having to hunt around song by song. Best of all is that "buyer's high" that you're just never going to get from downloading songs off of a gnutella network for free. Sure, I'm not getting a CD case. Sure, I'm not getting a CD Cover. Sure, I'm not getting physical media. But I am building a collection and there is cost invovled. By spending money I am giving up opportunity. Not much - I mean, crap you couldn't even buy a minute of long distance telephone service for the cost of some of these songs - but there is some opportunity cost involved.. which gives more weight to the action, gives you that glow.. that satisfied feeling of ownership.

3 cents still too much? Well, I'm ripping off my broadband internet from the neighbour's wireless network so I guess that's one less cost to consider. For me, my iBook, and my iPod this trip down the AllOfMP3 road so far has been a nice one.. let's hope it lasts.