Beatport
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Opened: | January, 2004 |
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| Pricing: | USA: $1.49 (back catalogue items) $1.99 (new releases) $2.49 (exclusive promo) $1 additional fee for WAV format UK: £1.29 (back catalogue items) £1.49 (new releases) £1.99 (exclusive promo) £1 additional fee for WAV format EU: €1.49 (back catalogue items) €1.99 (new releases) €2.49 (exclusive promo) €1 additional fee for WAV format |
| Platforms: | Microsoft Windows, Mac OS |
| Format: | MPEG Layer 3 (.mp3) @ 320kbps, MPEG Layer 4 (.mp4), WAVE Audio (.wav) |
| Restrictions: | None |
| Preview: | 2:00 minute MP3 previews @ 64kbps |
| Protocol: | Hypertext Transfer Protocol (http://) |
| Features: | 3000 Independent Labels, 125,000+ Songs |
| Customer support: | support@beatport.com |
| Website: | www.beatport.com |
Beatport is a US-based online music store based in Denver, Colorado that specializes in dance music and remixes. With music from more than 3000 labels and thousands of new tracks per week, Beatport is recognized as the leader in online digital dance music. It offers new releases, classic and exclusive tracks categorized by genre such as house music, trance music, electronica. Visitors may listen to previews of tracks, which are available for individual purchase through immediate download, similar to the iTunes Music Store. Visitors can purchase individual tracks, as well as complete lists of tracks from DJs who provide "top ten" lists to Beatport. Labels are paid on a royalty basis from the downloads. A small number of tracks have territorial sales restrictions. Beatport can be accessed at www.beatport.com, or using the Songbird (software) player.
All of Beatport's tracks are available as MP3, MP4 and WAV (44.1KHz) formats. Beatport's MP3s are encoded at a bit rate of 320kb/s using the LAME codec. Beatport performs its own encoding from the original records into the download formats, with the goal of providing for a uniformity of the product.
Track prices are as follow: $1.49 for back catalog items, $1.99 for new releases and $2.49 for exclusive promos. Additionally there's a $1 fee for each track downloaded in WAV format due to increased bandwidth and server space required by these files.
Since September 2006, different pricing applies where Beatport can detect that the customer is based within the European Union. Those customers in the UK are charged £1.29 for back catalog items, £1.49 for new releases and £1.99 for exclusive promos - plus an additional £1 fee for each track downloaded in WAV format. Those customers in the rest of the European Union are charged €1.49 for back catalog items, €1.99 for new releases and €2.49 for exclusive promos - plus an additional €1 fee for each track downloaded in WAV format. At the time of introduction, this new pricing represented increases of up to around 74% for UK customers (e.g. for back catalog tracks in WAV format) and around 27% for customers in the rest of the European Union.
The first version of Beatport launched in January 2004, the latest version, 3.0, was released in August 2006. The cutting-edge web interface of the Beatport site is in Adobe Flash.
Since 2005, Beatport has syndicated its technology to other online music sites, and powers several branded versions of itself. Each of these syndicates, although visually dissimilar, contain the same underlying content as the main Beatport site. One example is the DJMag download shop http://www.djmag.com/download. Another example is Traktor DJ Studio (a popular DJ software) which features embedded access to the Beatport catalog from within the application. Beatport is also listed as a partner for the online music store Burnlounge.
