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 directly at www.beatport.com and from within Traktor DJ Studio software or 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 USD for back catalog items, $1.99 for new releases and $2.49 for exclusive promos and classic releases. Additionally there's a $1.00 'WAV Handling Fee' assessed for each track downloaded in WAV format. The handling fee is applied to compensate for the increased quality & size of uncompressed WAV files, which requires far greater bandwidth and server space than MP3s or MP4s.
In September 2006, localized pricing was established for Beatport customers within the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union. Customers within these territories are shown pricing in their respective currencies: the US Dollar, the UK Pound Sterling or the European Euro. All other international customers are shown pricing in the US Dollar.
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 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.
