It’s funny that most UCLA students I talked to only heard about Cdigix when the company announced its services would be canceled.
Cdigix, a program that attempts to entice students with free legal music downloading, is failing in part because of the paradox it presented ““ the ability to download free files to a computer hard drive but without the option of uploading them to a portable music device.
But there’s also no doubt that Cdigix is the product of a tragically botched marketing campaign.
“Cdigix just wasn’t publicized well enough,” said Rajan Trehan, a second-year political science and economics student and Cdigix user. “You had to seek it out yourself if you wanted a legal alternative to free music downloads.”
I guess a lone table in Bruin Plaza offering pens just wasn’t enough ““ that’s how I heard about it, anyway.
Aside from its marketing problems, though, there’s no doubt Cdigix fails to live up to other programs such as Limewire and iTunes.
While Cdigix does offer an extensive music library of 2 million songs, iTunes still has more at 3.5 million and is more efficient with putting up new and rare releases.
Cdigix offers users the chance to buy songs at a slightly cheaper price of 89 cents, but there really is no point in purchasing the songs when they would be stuck on your computer anyway.
So what is the starving college student to do?
Employ iTunes for music purchases and go broke within hours?
Use Cdigix, pick through a small selection, and then create a playlist only accessible on your computer?
And this is where the cost-effective and convenient downloading services like Limewire come in.
There is a pesky problem of legality, but the benefits of illegally downloading far outweigh the chances of being fined.
At least that’s how the 90 percent of people who illegally download feel, according to a news article in the Daily Bruin on Thursday.
So Cdigix is ending its program at UCLA, students are thieving, and Clive Davis is shedding a tear somewhere in the background.
It’s a bad situation all around.
In an ideal world, music would be free. But alas, a compromise must be made somewhere.
So here is my solution:
Cdigix, or some other company, would increase its music selection and produce songs that could be put onto the purchaser’s music player of choice.
In an Apple-monopolized world, competition for iTunes would be welcome and could potentially drive down the cost of individual songs.
Some, however, feel that reconsidering our relationship with iTunes would be more successful in the war against illegal downloading.
“I would prefer to use the iTunes music store because I could use the downloads on my iPod,” Trehan said. “The university should forge a relationship with iTunes that would make it more affordable.”
As for free music downloading, the option should expand to include song demos to be uploaded into an iPod, and these songs would expire in a definite period of time, perhaps a month.
This option would give listeners a real chance to decide whether they actually want to buy it.
The creators of Cdigix had a good idea that was poorly executed. In fact, they forgot to consider what real appeal their service has for their target audience: college students.
Will you miss Cdigix? E-mail Bissell at abissell@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.