A British research firm says some of the most popular corporate download services are, “actively engaging in a form of guerilla slavery; using proprietary formats, closed system media players and proprietary portable devices”.
Shelley Taylor & Associates’ Digital Downloading evaluates 38 digital download services from Europe and the US representing a cross-industry sample including: 15 download stores, seven media player/jukeboxes, 10 online radio stations and six p2p sites including eDonkey, LimeWire and Kazaa.
Sites were analyzed between October and December, 2004, and took in iTunes, Sony’s Connect (Europe and US), MusicMatch, Virgin Mega.fr (France), Napster, Real’s Music Store Rhapsody On-Demand service, Fnac (France), Walmart; Media Players, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer and Winamp; Radio, live365, BBC radio, Yahoo Launchcast; p2p : Kazaa, eMule and Limewire.
As a result of the guerilla slavery, “user’s initial enthusiasm is being deflated as they realize they have been conned – there are more limitations imposed on legitimate digital downloads, media players and portable devices than advertised,” says the company’s Shelley Taylor.
“If music services focused on creating and delivering features, functions and content that enabled users to more fully participate in the pleasure of music, then these services would sell themselves.”
The sample of services represents an industry which is in its earliest stage of development so “best” can always be much, much better, says the study, going on that the sample was drawn from “better than average sites”.
Read the complete Story @ P2Pnet News
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