Online AMG is going to start charging

[ghost of miles]

I have it on pretty good authority that the online All Music Guide is going to go to a fee system. Don't know about you guys, but this will be a tough call for me--I do use the site a lot for various searches. I'll have to wait and see what they charge for usage.

[RonF]

It'll be a tough call for me too. I use it all the time. Guess I'm surprised they've waited so long.

How much will make the difference.

[Claude]

Who cares, the Penguin guide is better anyway.

Just kidding ...

I hope they will not lock the complete site but leave the discographies and tracklist available for free, and just charge for accessing the reviews.

[.:.impossible]

Oh well. I use AMG for reference often. I also like the "Similar Artist" feature. You could click-through for days on this feature alone! I'm not going to pay for it though. Guess I'll be pulling the old book out soon!

[Rooster_Ties]

Whether I buy or not entirely depends on how much they want to charge.

$10 or even $15 per year for the same thing I'm getting now, and I'll probably buy. Maybe $20 tops.

But $40 or $50 per year, and there's no way I'm buying that.

And I'd rather pay the piper once per year for unlimited use, than having them nickel and dime me to death for each and every transaction.

GoM - any idea about their timetable for starting to charge??? Any idea what the price(s) will be like???

[kenny weir]

Bloody hell - this'll be a real blow for me, and for my newspaper. Th entire staff uses AMG while editing - and writing - stories for entertainment coverage, including CD rviews and jazz and EVERYTHING, as well as the movie site. Can't imagine Rupert allowing us to use a fee-pay site!

[ghost of miles]

Whether I buy or not entirely depends on how much they want to charge.

$10 or even $15 per year for the same thing I'm getting now, and I'll probably buy. Maybe $20 tops.

But $40 or $50 per year, and there's no way I'm buying that.

And I'd rather pay the piper once per year for unlimited use, than having them nickel and dime me to death for each and every transaction.

GoM - any idea about their timetable for starting to charge??? Any idea what the price(s) will be like???

I haven't heard anything yet about a timetable or rate, but I'll try to find out more from my source. I agree that $20 or so for a one-year, unlimited-use service would probably be acceptable. While I agree with Claude that Penguin's reviews are much better, I tend to use AMG primarily for the track listings, discographies, and artist bios, and for info about OOP albums and CDs which Penguin doesn't cover. It's been particularly helpful on several occasions when I was putting radio programs together. I guess I'm hoping that they include a "day-pass" option similar to what Salon now has, where you just have to sit through an ad and then gain access. Sure, it's a bit of a drag to do that on any given day that you visit the site, but I'd sooner do that than pay Salon's $30 fee.

[John L]

Hmmm.

I wish that AMG would exploit another way to make money. Sell the database to us for private use!

It would be a dream come true to download the AMG database in a manner that allows us to edit and add what we want, and then create a subdatabase for our own collections. We could then pay for monthly updates.

[Dan Gould]

This could seriously impact the Blindfold Test if we won't be able to link to the answer.

[Daniel A]

Personally, I'm going to use exclusively material that's not (or at least incorrectly) listed in the AMG for my blindfold disc!

[Jim R]

I do use AMG sometimes, but it's not often my first stop when looking for discographical data. I've got no use for their reviews in general (especially the whole rating thing), and the "similar artist" function usually just makes me laugh. At any rate, there are a lot of specialized artist discographies on the net, and they're almost always more helpful and accurate than AMG's. Some of us also have decent jazz databases. So, consider your options before you pay for AMG.

[bluenoter]

Yow! I rely on it heavily to answer such questions as "On which recordings did this artist appear as a sideman?" and "Who has recorded this tune?"

[J Larsen]

Hmmm.

I wish that AMG would exploit another way to make money. Sell the database to us for private use!

It would be a dream come true to download the AMG database in a manner that allows us to edit and add what we want, and then create a subdatabase for our own collections. We could then pay for monthly updates.

I think you'd need pretty big harddrive for that!

[.:.impossible]

...and the "similar artist" function usually just makes me laugh.

I agree that a lot of the connections between jazz albums are a bit of a stretch at times, but that is what makes it fun! I'm always coming across things I didn't even know existed. I've used it for rock music as well.

[Dmitry]

I will not pay for the privilege of reading Thom Jurek's record reviews. Sorry.

[Brad]

That's a bummer. That site has a lot of information that give me information about purchases I might be considering as well as discographical answers. I'd pay for the privilege but it depends how much. Unfortunately, the book is not as comprehensive.

[John L]

Hmmm.

I wish that AMG would exploit another way to make money.  Sell the database to us for private use! 

It would be a dream come true to download the AMG database in a manner that allows us to edit and add what we want, and then create a subdatabase for our own collections.  We could then pay for monthly updates.

I think you'd need pretty big harddrive for that!

You mean that it wouldn't fit on a CD ROM?

It could be a stripped down version with just the data. No pictures or reviews necessary.

Although some of the reviews are good, I find the real value of the AMG to be the cross-referencing ability of identifying where sessions and songs appeared, who played on them, what date, etc.

[Jim R]

I find the real value of the AMG to be the cross-referencing ability of identifying where sessions and songs appeared, who played on them, what date, etc.

I do think that song searches there can be quite useful and helpful, and to some extent getting info on sideman appearances as well. However, the idea of going to AMG looking for dates is very iffy, IMO. They constantly confuse dates of recording with dates of release, and even when they don't, they tend to get them wrong a lot of the time.

[micha]

They actually do license out their content. At one time I was developing a piece of software to catalog my music collection and was very interested in accessing the data directly. However, it looks like it is more geared towards larger clients (i.e. amazon) and I have a feeling the cost would be in the thousands, if not tens of thousands, per year.

Since I only want to use it for a small searchable catalog for personal use I ended up writing something to connect to the site and extract the data into my own database. I guess this wouldn't work any longer if they switch to a subscription service and I would really miss it; I find myself using the AMG site for reference at least 5-10 times a day and I'd hate to go back to relying on sites like amazon or cddb.com again.

For those wondering, the database is about 250MB compressed, which would fit on a cdr or any hard drive made in the past 6-7 years. Decompressed it is about 850MB to a little over a gig, depending on how you read it.

link: http://www.allmediaguide.com/tech.html

[John L]

I find the real value of the AMG to be the cross-referencing ability of identifying where sessions and songs appeared, who played on them, what date, etc.

I do think that song searches there can be quite useful and helpful, and to some extent getting info on sideman appearances as well. However, the idea of going to AMG looking for dates is very iffy, IMO. They constantly confuse dates of recording with dates of release, and even when they don't, they tend to get them wrong a lot of the time.

That would be part of the beauty of getting the database as a download. You have the information? You can fix the errors.

[Jim R]

True, John. I suppose there will always be a trade-off between convenience and accuracy. I just think that a lot of people overlook the accuracy part. To me, taking large amounts of raw data from AMG is kind of a frightening concept.

[John L]

Understood.

That is why we need competition in the industry.

[Christiern]

Before they even think of charging a dime, they had better spend a year or two correcting the hundreds of ridiculous errors and conflicts that make the site useless for serious research. The problem is that their database is automated--its the same sort of thing that, on Amazon, suggests that readers of my Bessie Smith biography might also be interested in Bessey Clamps from Rockler Woodworking!

[DrJ]

I would pay a nominal fee, but no more.

Dan, I wouldn't worry about the blindfold test...for example, I created a complete listing of all the tracks and musicians on my disc, and think others should do the same, to post along with their "this is why I chose these tracks" comments.

[Jim R]

Tony, I think Dan was referring to the current ability we have to link to AMG pages to "discreetly" give the answers during the initial discussion phase- before the test leader divulges all the answers. As I see it, this isn't really an issue, because most any recording that might be chosen for a BF test can be linked via other sites (discographies, CD retailers, artist websites, etc).