- Downloads in Elena Kuschnerova's Downloads
Shop are
commercial-quality recordings encoded into high-fidelity MP3, WMA, and M4A audio (AAC)
files that can be hardly distinguished from the originals even
on a good audio system. Downloads have such advantages over CDs as
lower price, worldwide availability, compact storage, the ease of
building a library, and of the mobile use. All these files are tagged
with artist names, album titles, release years etc. No DRM system is
used, files are unprotected and they can be unlimitedly copied and
shared. After you buy a download you will recieve links to the track in
all formats that are currently offered in this shop.
- Digital goods in this shop are being sold
directly, without intermediaries and using simplest technical solutions.
This allows to keep the price very low and affordable to everyone. For a
comparison, Napster offers streaming audio for the subscription
price of $9.95 a month, and you can buy tracks for $0.80 per track. Napster
Lite works without subscription and without streaming audio but you
have to pay $0.99 per track. Real Networks
offers streaming audio for the subscription price of $9.95 a month plus
$0.79 per track via their Jukebox Rhapsody, similarly to Napster.
Apples' iTunes offers downloads for $0.99 per
track, similarly to Napster Lite. Microsoft's MSN Network sells
downloads for even higher prices: $0.99, $1.98, or even $2.97. All these
organizations claim to have sold great amounts of subscriptions and/or
downloads to their customers in 2004. EK downloads shop also shows
very good performance since its opening in autumn 2004. And this is not
a surprise: The track price is much lower here (suggest your price!), and the outstanding
artistic level of Elena Kuschnerova's recordings is well known.
- M4A audio (AAC) files are encoded with QuickTime 6
Pro at 128 kbps constant bit rate (CBR), 44 KHz, encoding quality
"Best". These files have extension *.M4A. Buy M4As if you own an iPod or
another portable digital player supporting M4A audio. Also you can listen to
M4As on your PC or Mac. Here is the growing and probably incomplete list
of software players supporting M4A: QuickTime 6, iTunes, Winamp 5, Real
Player 10, foobar2000, VLC media player.
- Most of the WMA files are two-pass variable bit rate (VBR) with the average bit rate of 128 kbps.
We use WMA as a good alternative to M4A since modern
WMAs sound very well, too, and Windows Media Player is
preinstalled on most PCs. Also many portable MP3 players support
WMA.
- MP3 files are 192 kbps CBR
(constant bit rate) for Album tracks and 128 kbps CBR for non-Album tracks. Although the MP3 format is old and it has been
superceded by the newer M4A, WMA, and other formats,
we offer MP3s in this shop since many buyers still want MP3s,
as follows from the results of the poll.
- This Downloads Shop accepts PayPal
payments.
is an Internet money-transfer utility that is especially convenient for
purchases from small vendors who do not process credit cards. The
advantage of using PayPal is that the bank data of the buyer are not
revealed to the seller, that is, PayPal ensures security of the
transaction. Using PayPal is free for the buyer, whereas the seller pays
a small fee to Paypal. To buy via PayPal, it is sufficient to open a
free basic Personal Account at PayPal. You can link your PayPal account
with one of your credit cards or with the checking account in you bank,
to transfer money to your PayPal account or to withdraw your money from
PayPal. In fact, you can have a zero balance on your PayPal account for
purchases of such items as CDs. After the purchase you will be asked by
PayPal to transfer the needed money to your PayPal account, then this
money will go to the seller, and the purchase will be completed. However
for buying instant downloads you need to already have the money on your
PayPal account. In this case after the purchase you will be forwarded to
the downloads page where you can download the purchased items, and also
you will automatically recieve an email with download links. If your
PayPal account is empty, you will be forwarded to the error page instead
of the downloads page, and then the shopmaster will have to send you the
download links manually. Please, try to avoid this
situation!
- Free
tracks are encoded, as a rule, with a lower resolution than commercial
tracks. Downsampling of free tracks is mandatory given a steady growth
of the bandwidth usage on this web site. It is needed to avoid the
situation in which artists have to pay too much to hosting companies for
providing listeners with free music. Buying commercial downloads for a
low and negotiable price (as
well as buing CDs) gives you a better listening
experience as well as the satisfaction from your support of art and
artists.
- Please,
take part in the non-obligatory poll below that aims at finding out most
appropriate price, download format, and payment method for Elena
Kuschnerova's downloads shop. What is a fair price for an average
download? Do you prefer lossy or lossless formats? Is PayPal good for
you for making payments? You can vote for the available statements or
submit your own choice at the top of the poll, for instance: "0.39$",
"0.99€" to suggest the price, "MP3", "M4A (AAC)", "Apple Lossless",
"Monkey's Audio" for your favorite format, "PayPal", "Credit card",
"Amazon honor system" for your preferred payment method. You can even
enter negative statements explaining why you don't buy downloads, for
instance "Music should be free", "Internet transactions are insecure",
"Have no money", etc.
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