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Topic: radiohead in rainbows vorbis/flac/rockbox petition draft (Read 13562 times) previous topic - next topic
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radiohead in rainbows vorbis/flac/rockbox petition draft

the following text is an email I sent to radiohead's support email address, they never repplied, it was uploaded to the xiph.org wiki to form the basis for a draft text that is properly written and well articulated, in order to create an online petition/email campaing to bring the formats issue to their attention, gathering enough critical mass to make it to digg/slashdot or some other place where it will get their attention, please feel free to help out, at the very least they should offer both mp3 and vorbis options and we could get a good side by side quality comparison, anyone here wants to help draft a proper text, any efforts would be very helpful

the following text was originally posted here, It should be much better by now http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/Radiohead_album_advocacy

Quote
Radiohead album advocacy
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Good afternoon, I would like to place / already placed (people who already placed should probably email the final text with their order number to their email support address ) a pre-order for the radiohead download album but since I am an open-source user and a strong supporter of open formats, I would like to know if it you could possibly inform me of the digital format used in the download, I understand that while MP3 has a wider market acceptance, it is covered by patents and of inferior quality than the Vorbis format, and of vastly inferior quality than the full lossless encoding of the FLAC format.

Also although software patents are still invalid in Europe, in the united states and other such countries the patents concerning the mp3 format make it technically illegal for Linux/open source users to use the mp3 codecs in order to listen to an mp3 download.

A FLAC file however can be legally distributed and used without restrictions and there are free tools which allow anyone to transcode into their preferred lossy format to be used in their portable player, also FLAC is already supported by almost all players and is a de facto industry standard.

Also although Apple has kept their users choice of codec artificially limited, there exists an alternative software for the ipod series and a number of several other digital audio players which adds support for nearly all codecs in existence and which is available free of charge as an open source project. You can find more information about this at http://rockbox.org

Also I would like to know if it would be possible to make the phone mobile number and the street address fields not mandatory for the download only option.

Thank you for your time, kind regards,

radiohead in rainbows vorbis/flac/rockbox petition draft

Reply #1 –
sorry, i don't mean to be negative, but they are in effect giving you a FREE album to download.

i think that gives them every right to choose whatever format they wish.

constructively, that email makes the sender sound ungrateful for the gesture radiohead have allowed with this download, and sounds more like a demand for more than they are / might be giving.

you can get a CD version of it if you really want the album at a particular quality level, either by ordering the box set or waiting for the regular CD release which i'm sure will eventually come out.

radiohead in rainbows vorbis/flac/rockbox petition draft

Reply #2 –
Quote from: trev on
sorry, i don't mean to be negative, but they are in effect giving you a FREE album to download.

i think that gives them every right to choose whatever format they wish.

constructively, that email makes the sender sound ungrateful for the gesture radiohead have allowed with this download, and sounds more like a demand for more than they are / might be giving.

you can get a CD version of it if you really want the album at a particular quality level, either by ordering the box set or waiting for the regular CD release which i'm sure will eventually come out.


final point and response to this post bolded for a quick read in lieu of brevity.


the order form for the download version contains an open field for specifying any amount in british pounds. i, for one, am going to buy this album as a download for what i consider to be a reasonable price, plus a donation for making an example of how to do things the right way. music is art, not a simple commodity. i'll be paying 10 british pounds for my copy... that's about $12 US, which i find to be a reasonable price for an album, and $8 because, well, it's radiohead, and they're doing something very cool here.

i shake my head disapprovingly at those who would consider this "free" and pay $0.01. such behavior just supports the actions of the RIAA and other organizations that would rather see music, software, and other digital media owned by corporations and merely licensed to us peons for limited personal use. if radiohead can turn a large profit from offering their music like this, it will set a precedent for other bands to do the same.

it's about time somebody with some clout stood up to the RIAA and the rest of the corrupt recording industry. bloated labels, payola, and top 40 radio are a thing of the past, and this is a good first step toward taking out the trash.

that being said, i think it's very reasonable to ask for the music to be released for download in lossless format. encoding to any particular format is neither costly nor inconvenient. the only overhead that might be incurred is increased bandwidth usage for offering a larger, better quality download. the goodwill of music fans who will actually pay a reasonable amount for this download will more than offset this, though.

radiohead in rainbows vorbis/flac/rockbox petition draft

Reply #3 –
I must say I was somewhat disappointed to find out that the download is going to be a lowly 160 kbps MP3, probably not LAME and probably not even VBR... That means for me that I will have to eventually either get the regular CD when it is released (and pay twice, because no, I didn't choose to get it for free...) or just download a lossless rip on P2P...
If they were concerned about bandwidth costs for a significantly larger lossless download  (and they probably would have good reason to, since it's likely going to be many thousands who will rush to their servers as soon as it is released), they might as well use BitTorrent for the distribution and have users even pay their own bandwidth.

radiohead in rainbows vorbis/flac/rockbox petition draft

Reply #4 –
I can guarantee that over 90% of everyone who buys the album doesnt know what FLAC is nor what to do with it, and that makes it unreasonable to distribute the CD in that format.  I would sure love a V2 or V0 version of the album over 160kbps, but asking for lossless on something that allows you to pay whatever you want to give to the artist is pushing it, I think.

radiohead in rainbows vorbis/flac/rockbox petition draft

Reply #5 –
A better idea might be to ask for lossless/higher bitrate availability if you've payed over a certain amount. (Like close to a CD, $10+) Whatever the bandwidth costs, it's less than making a physical copy of a CD and trucking it out to a record store.

radiohead in rainbows vorbis/flac/rockbox petition draft

Reply #6 –
Quote from: Dologan on
I must say I was somewhat disappointed to find out that the download is going to be a lowly 160 kbps MP3, probably not LAME and probably not even VBR... That means for me that I will have to eventually either get the regular CD when it is released (and pay twice, because no, I didn't choose to get it for free...) or just download a lossless rip on P2P...

Wrong on one count, right on the other. Turns out the encoding is actually made with LAME... 3.93.  And it is indeed 160 kbps CBR.
I guess expecting a FLAC was a bit too much, but they sure could have done better than that. I guess I'll be getting the real thing once it comes out, if the artwork is good and the price reasonable.

radiohead in rainbows vorbis/flac/rockbox petition draft

Reply #7 –
Quote from: perdidopunk on
snip

it's about time somebody with some clout stood up to the RIAA and the rest of the corrupt recording industry. bloated labels, payola, and top 40 radio are a thing of the past, and this is a good first step toward taking out the trash.

that being said, i think it's very reasonable to ask for the music to be released for download in lossless format. encoding to any particular format is neither costly nor inconvenient. the only overhead that might be incurred is increased bandwidth usage for offering a larger, better quality download. the goodwill of music fans who will actually pay a reasonable amount for this download will more than offset this, though.


I agree. But how can this be done? Lossless format although compressed still devour quite a substantial bit of bandwidth. I for one am not going to order the 40 pound discbox. With LPs, CDs and other goodies thrown into it, it is worth the money I know but I can't afford it. I would like to settle for just the download but I want to play it on my full set and their current offering isn't good enough. I have tested it. The music is good but the sound is not up to CD standards. Considering that their last release was a Grammy award winner for best engineered recording, they could do better. One way to do this is to host a torrent file and seed the lossless version. At the same time, encourage the fan base to help seed it. But how do we compensate Radiohead for this? Well, they could do just like what they did for downloading their lossy format. Pay whatever you like to download that torrent file. It's up to you  .
Life is short, delaying enjoyment is pointless.

radiohead in rainbows vorbis/flac/rockbox petition draft

Reply #8 –
Quote from: beyondipod on
I would like to settle for just the download but I want to play it on my full set and their current offering isn't good enough. I have tested it. The music is good but the sound is not up to CD standards.
Although I do not doubt that a percentage of people will be able to ABX the MP3s I think that we need to wait until there is a lossless version to compare to before making such claims.  Please consider TOS #8.
I'm on a horse.

radiohead in rainbows vorbis/flac/rockbox petition draft

Reply #9 –
Quote from: Synthetic Soul on
Although I do not doubt that a percentage of people will be able to ABX the MP3s I think that we need to wait until there is a lossless version to compare to before making such claims.  Please consider TOS #8.


Thank you for pointing that out to me. The disc isn't out yet but I am basing my judgment on their previous discs that I have. Two of them are or were favourite test discs of professional hi-fi equipment reviewers, OK Computer and Hail To The Thief (Is Radiohead trying to tell something to their fans on this one?). I would say, their pressings are of very high quality. But on this lossy offering, I thought I heard some clipping distortions on some complex passages. And just because they don't have the backing of a major label now doesn't mean they used inferior studios. The orchestra backup on one of the tracks was of reasonable quality from what I can discern.
Life is short, delaying enjoyment is pointless.

radiohead in rainbows vorbis/flac/rockbox petition draft

Reply #10 –
It will be interesting to see how many people can ABX the MP3s when we have a lossless source.  Unfortunately, we are likely to only hear from those people who can, and the people who attempt an ABX are likely to be those with the skills to do so (golden ears) or with a point to prove.  We'll never hear from the millions who are blissfully unaware of bitrates and lossless codecs.

If you are not familiar with ABXing it may be worth investigating, and perhaps even trying to ABX some 160kbps CBR LAME tracks against a lossless rip of your own music, as a trial.  You can even get LAME 3.93 from ReallyRareWares.
I'm on a horse.
 

radiohead in rainbows vorbis/flac/rockbox petition draft

Reply #11 –
Thanks SS, I'll have to check them out  .
Life is short, delaying enjoyment is pointless.