Play audio before buy

if you'd be able to play before you buy it, wouldn't that mean people can get the file for free?

see http://drupal.org/node/65941

as described, this is a bug with the ecommerce product module. that module would be the place to allow users to play the file but not download it. the audio module considers them as separate permissions and allows other modules the ability to allow or deny access.

the big thing to keep in mind is, if they can play the file with a little knowledge they can dowload the file. so from the ecommerce module's perspective, it doesn't make any sense to allow playing if they haven't paid for it unless you're going to do something to shorten/mangle the "free" version of the file. as halkeye pointed out #65941 has some discussion about this topic.

Moving this to E-commerce. I'm terribly interested in solving this issue. If anyone has some ideas or advices, I'd like to hear them.

btw: I have to select 'product', since Component is mandatory.

I have this problem also but in fairness what we need is an audio download product rather than an audio node converted to a product. The audio download product needs to have a file (the product for sale) and a preview (either a low-quality or excerpt version of the file). It would be nice if the preview could be auto-generated from the file but it would be quite acceptable for an early version to require 2 files uploaded. The other difference is that the audio download product should encompass tracks that are sold alone and|or|not as part of an album.

@chu: Very good explanation and a good focus.

Goals:

1. Preview samples for audio nodes.
2. Restricted access to audio nodes only for users who have bought the node.
3. Buyable audio albums.

1. Preview samples
IMHO the easiest way to accomplish this is to duplicate [bad!] the audio.module to a audio_preview.module, including database tables. audio_preview would have to hook into the audio forms to let users upload preview samples for a audio node. This would result in a audio node, which has two audio files attached. Audio information (through getid3) would be available for both files (theming).

2. Restricted access to audio nodes
Thanks to a hint by drewish, E-commerce ec_media module is the right approach for this issue. It is currently only available in HEAD. ec_media.module converts audio nodes to ecommerce products and works in conjunction with the ecommerce file module (buyable file downloads). With 1. in mind, the real audio node would be sold and the audio preview sample would be publicly available. Users only have access to the complete audio file, if their ecommerce transaction is completed.

3. Buyable audio albums
That is a missing link between audio.module and ecommerce ec_media.module. Since audio.module is only capable of filtering audio nodes by album currently, there is no chance to sell a 'filter view'. What we need here is a unique audio album node for each album created by audio.module. If that would present, we were able to extend ec_media.module to allow conversion of album nodes to ecommerce products, too. We have to keep in mind that album prices may have to differ from the price of summarized of audio tracks (f.e. buy all tracks separately = $20.00, buy album = $12.99).

4. How-to
I'd like to add that this whole approach needs a bit of documentation, so that other site admins are able to learn how to set up a audio selling site.

I'd like to hear your votes and feedback for this approach. If you do so, please separate your remarks into the above topics.
When we will find a conclusion how to solve these goals I'd like to propose issue offshoots for each topic (using above example: three new issues, two in audio project, one in ecommerce ec_media project).

Addition to 3. Buyable audio albums:
The playlist.module already provides the functionality to add audio tracks (nodes) to a playlist (i.e. album). Audio nodes can even be added to multiple playlists, so if one track is on more than one album it does not have to be uploaded more than once. This already incorporates audio compilations. So this goal changes to 3. Buyable audio playlists.
Basically we need the identical functionality of ec_media, but instead of audio nodes we need it for playlist nodes.

Not wanting to muddy the water, but at some point you would want to have multiple versions of the buyable file within a download (e.g. MP3, FLAC, some new drm format to be invented etc) - it's not necessary to be implemented in early versions but I think the underlying code design should maybe bear this in mind.

Regarding albums, I'm not convinced the audio playlist module is a great fit personally - it seems more geared to playlists and doesn't currently have the right fields an album product. An album could be defined as an ordered parcel with some metadata such as label, artwork, release date, catalog #, UPC barcode #. But maybe it's easier to tweak playlist. (Unfortunately I can't get e-commerce parcel working - http://drupal.org/node/78561).

Good point about different audio formats. But I think for this the current audio.module would have only to be extended to allow more than one file upload in pre-configured formats for each audio node.

Playlist.module provides just an API and this seems like a perfectly fitting base to me. Attention: by speaking of 'playlist module', audio_playlist is probably the [sub-]module you're having in mind.
As ec_media is already capable of hooking into audio_playlist.module now, it shouldn't be too difficult to create a new (node-based) module using the playlist API with the additional fields you proposed.

chu / sun, i'd be interested in working with you on this. i've got two things in mind.

the first would be creating something like an audio_album module that could be an extension of audio_playlist to group audio nodes and add album specific metadata. that seems like it would help solve the grouping albums problem but not the previewing problem.

i think that previews should really be handled by an audio_preview module that stores separate preview versions of the audio files (the user could upload low resolution or shortened files). the module could use hook_audio() to intercept play requests, check the user's permissions (aka payment) and if needed alter the play URL to the preview file.

i'm willing to make changes to the hook_audio to provide opportunities for you to perhaps by creating

whoops, preview != submit. that last line was supposed to read:
i'm willing to make any needed changes to hook_audio to provide opportunities to make this work. i want the audio module to be as flexible as possible.

Makes sense to me. I'm not a drupal dev so I can't do much more than make suggestions but happy to bounce ideas around etc.

We couldn't have better support than from you, drewish! :)

Let's conclude which tasks we have so far:

1. audio_preview.module: Lets users upload a second preview sample file to each audio node by using the audio API. File information is available in each audio node (including ID3 support). Generating preview samples is not part of the process and may be a later step.
2. audio_album.module: Lets users group audio nodes into a new album node with additional album specific metadata by using the playlist API.
3. ec_media.module has to be customized to support audio_preview.module. Preview samples have to be publicly available, whilst a complete audio file is not available until a user has bought it. [Detail: This could be done by simply replacing the audio file link.] ec_media.module also has to be extended to support commerce of complete albums.
4. audio.module may be extended to support uploading and providing of more than one audio file format for each audio node. [Detail: Number of formats is unimportant; Formats may be set up in audio settings; Preview sample required for each format; No effect on ecommerce; Each user should be able to configure her/his preferred format]

Please bear in mind that all of those actions do not deal with copy protection or DRM and these topics will not be part of the realization.

If all of you agree to these tasks, I'll be happy to create one offshoot issue for each task, so we are able to focus on them separately. I'd like to change the status of this issue here to postponed then.

Sounds OK to me.

sun, that sounds like a good break down of the problem.

Excellent description!

Relationship between audio nodes and audio preview_nodes?

User Interface to upload multiple audio files and audio preview files? Permision settings?

Album creation is grouping of arbitrary audio nodes. Product can be created from any album.

Relationship between audio nodes and audio preview_nodes?

The way I understood this, a preview would not be a node per se, but rather an additional file attached to the audio node.

BWT, I'm also very interested at this.
+1 for the idea and for the feature set as it's shaping :-)

+1 from me. It sounds (sorry!) like a great idea.

wow... old thread. Interesting issue that might be relevant on the audio.module tracker http://drupal.org/node/102912

hi guys,

this all sounds good... i have been away for a while actually writing and recording music, heh heh...

but i really need to solve these problems...

i just found this solution you guys might find interesting:
http://notetoselfdontdie.com/members/node/61
i just put it at the bottom of that page to play around with it...

basically, http://blastmymusic.com/ accomplishes everything i need... except they are USA-centric at the moment...

and even though they use paypal, the actual purchase process is more complicated than i would like...

this is still the "easiest" purchase flow i have seen so far of any ecommerce/store system
http://notetoselfdontdie.com/members/node/63

i am not a develope type dude so i can't really help other than to beg for features etc...

how far off is a "drupal" solution?

it might be worth noting that the blastmymusic.com dudes also let you drop their html into myspace.com pages...

Marlowx:

How far off is a "drupal" solution?

Strongly recommend you have a look at the quickfile.module. It allows you to setup your own payloadz service. (currently supports paypal and authorize.net as payment options.)

no login required...2 or 3 simple clicks and you've paid and got the downloaded song.

used alongside the audio.module you've got yourself a "play before pay" Drupal solution.

Dub

+1 For me too, any news on this project ?

I'm quite into this.
I have successfully created buyable tracks, or buyable parcels of tracks (but they don't behave as albums)
downloadable and flash-playable tracks,
and playlists that behave as albums,

but creating buyable and previewable playlists seems not doable with the current state
of audio.module and the e-commerce modules.

Perhaps a logical extension to the quickfiles module would be to have a 'buy all' checkbox in order to enable purchase of an album? This way perhaps we could trigger an automatic, simplified cart (VERY simplified, just a single, fixed stack of products from one parent node) so that a price could either be automatically generated (sum of total prices of children (songs)), or stored in a field of a custom node type ('album')?

I guess this would possibly involve integration with something like nodefamily.module or some such?
And also creation of a specific custom type for Collections of tracks, linking the two together...

Don't know - merely throwing ideas into the stew. I am starting work on something that could use this facility. Today.

PS if anyone wants to translate that lot back into English, feel free! :)

guys,

ec_media is gone. use upload and file module instead.

regards,

massa