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by orangechicken 5457 days ago
I certainly identified with the spirit of the article and know that people are willing to pay money for legal access to digital content when it's easy and has the stuff people want. I'm one of them.

Since I signed up for Rhapsody about a year ago, my downloading of music illegally has plummeted. I trade the small amount of Downloader's Guilt for $10/mo and have access to (almost) everything I want to listen to. (And from wherever I want to listen to it: my computer, my phone, my home stereo.)

Before Rhapsody, I was downloading gigabytes of albums – I hadn't bought a CD in the new millenium (save those from smaller bands I wanted to personally supported). Now the music industry has me as a customer again, and monthly. Hollywood needs a Rhapsody to survive.
2 comments
Huppie 5457 days ago
The usual problems sadly also apply to Rhapsody:

"Sorry, we are not able to offer Rhapsody Premier at this time. We are not able to offer Rhapsody Premier in Netherlands (substitute for just about any non-US country) at this time. For the latest music and entertainment offers in your country, click Current Offers. Click Cancel to end this session.

If you believe you've received this message in error, check to make sure your country and language settings are accurate. "

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tomjen3 5457 days ago
Indeed.

Don't look at torrents. Go look at many of the download services rapidshare.com, megaupload.com, etc. They all have one thing in common: they charge money.

This means that there is a segment of people out there who are willing to pay, but whoes needs are for one reason or another are not met under the current system.

If you want to grow the market try to capture them.

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w1ntermute 5457 days ago
Of course, all these sites are charging for is taking away the inconvenience of the free download option. If you use JDownloader[0] and don't want to see something right away, you can use these sites just as well without paying them a single cent. The most significant exception are the other sites, such as HotFile, which use ReCAPTCHA, making JDownloader much less useful.

0: http://jdownloader.org/

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