Microsoft have confirmed that they plan to release an online music download service in 2004 [Slashdot.org].
I've had a couple of cases mixed up lately. The Mp3s4free.net case [australianit], and the recently ruled MP3\WMA Land case. From what I've understood from the news reports is that those running mp3s4free never hosted any files on their site, they only linked to external sources of music, while those at MP3\WMALand actually hosted the files.
The ruling for MP3\WMALand was a mixture of suspended 18 month sentences, community service and a $5000 fine.
I'm interested to see if the "link only" case gets anywhere...
Newstext is a searchable archive of articles from News Corporation's newspapers. This includes hundreds of newspapers including local papers (Victoria's "Leader" publications), national newspapers, papers in London, New Zealand, Fiji and other countries and local paper from right around Australia. In comparison, Fairfax's pay-per-view site includes only around 10 publications.
Newstext's free example search is restricted to only the last 30 days and to one publication at a time. Fairfax's free version is fully functional and allows you to search the entire archive. Both versions require you to pay before you view the individual articles.
Newstext has a far larger range of publications and to an earlier time period. The quality of these publications compared to Fairfax's will not be commented on. I'm not getting into a Herald-Sun vs. The Age arguement. I'm ammused to see Newstext's archive included the fairly recent free afternoon newspaper MX.
Newstext works on a credit system. The minimum credit purchase is 10 credits (which is 10 article views) for $14 (minimum purchase on Fairfax is $11). Thus on average it is cheaper to the $1.60 per article for Fairfax. You may also bulk purchase 2000+ credits for 90 cents each. Credits last for one year from purchase.
You can not register to use the system without entering credit card details (you may register off the web via cheque or money order). You may register "sub accounts" with credit limits, I assume to allow schools to bulk register a class of children etc.
Newstext's site was much slower than Fairfax's however I can't say that was because of them or because of the bad internet connection I was using.
Once logged in and paid for the full set of search options improve. You may customise the set of publications in your publication list, enabling you to remove any rubish you may not want to search. You may search specifically in the headline, by article writer, by section, edition, page, caption, illustration and more. Many more options than the Fairfax search (headline and/or maintext only).
Options for date range are annoyingly placed on a seperate search options page which are then saved to preferences. Annoying if you're constantly changing the search range. Also, there is a minor bug in the search where is remembers your previous search options. Most of the time it is correct in remembering your previous search options and it is a useful feature, but it does not remember when you empty a field. Thus if you previously refind your search to search for a specific author, then your next search you blank the "Author" search field, it remembers the previous author. It doesn't search for that author if you blank the field, but when you return to the search the Author field is filled it. This can be frustrating, particularly if you don't notice and wonder why your searches are returning no results.
The maximum number of publications to search at any time is 10. During the search you are shown a "Please wait while your request is being processed..." page until your search is finished. My search of 10 newspapers for the past 10 years for a piece of text timed out. It seems searches are organised by a unique key so re-loading the timed out search page worked without having to re-enter or re-post the search and my results were quickly displayed.
When you find an article you're intereted in you may click it's title. A popup (grrr!) is displayed which asks if you're sure you want to download, how much it will cost in credits and how much your credits are currently worth (based on how many you have and how much they cost you). Clicking "cancel" kills the popup. Clicking "Continue" sets your search results page to the article you clicked.
Newstext has a "printer friendly" option for articles viewed. Fairfax did not. Clicking "printer friendly version" opens another popup (grrr!) with a "print" button hidden way down the bottom. Clicking print kills the popup.
Newstext refers to each article as a "download". I can't tell you how confusing this is for me. I don't see viewing an HTML page as a "download". Calling article views "downloads" cleverly gives each article more weight, making it seem more substantial than just viewing HTML. Didn't work on me.
On further usage, I'd say Newstext is much slower than Fairfax, although in fairness the amount of data being searched on Newstext is massive.
Newstext appears to have included each photo-with-caption as a seperate article in their database. However, the site is text only, no photographs are included. Thus it is possible to return in your search a 20 word caption for a photograph that will cost you $1.40 to view, but with no photo.
The site remembers for about 15 minutes which articles you have viewed. You do not have to repay to re-view an article within that time. I would have thought it would be more fair to save the articles you've paid for to your account so you never have to pay for them again...
I believe a huge bonus for sites like this would be actual scans of each article including any photographs... although I notice that on some articles you are able to order a "high quality reprint of the page this article appears on". In these cases a thumbnail image of the page can be viewed. I full sized reproduction of a page will cost you $100 (broadsheet) or $80 (tabloid)!
As far as usefulness is concerned... Newstext had ten times as many articles I needed compared to the Fairfax search and that's really the only comparison worth talking about. When it comes down to it, as fantastic an idea it is to be able to so easily find old articles from 20 years ago from hundreds of newspapers... $1+ per article still seems like a lot of money for archives that feel like they should be free.