Slashdot Mirror

I hear you; as someone who frequently gets "music cravings" (mmm must get some rock mmm musicals etc.), I think it's tragic that Amazon (or iTunes, etc.) would like me to buy from them, I would like to buy from them, this is all completely legal and allowed and everything, but the tight-fisted music companies don't want their music slipping into Asia without them putting a mark-up on it. My current cravings (intensified by my work computers' lack of a working CD-ROM drive) are probably going to be satiated through Magnatune, which _does_ let you download their music anywhere in the world. And it's cheap! Personally, I'm not a big fan of electronica and rock-with-lots-of-distortion in it, so a lot of their catalogue is wasted on me, but they have some really nice classical music you should definitely give a listen to. In rock, I can recommend Plunkett and Arthur Yoria.

(Not affiliated with Magnatune, just a satisfied customer!)

I hear you; as someone who frequently gets "music cravings" (mmm must get some rock mmm musicals etc.), I think it's tragic that Amazon (or iTunes, etc.) would like me to buy from them, I would like to buy from them, this is all completely legal and allowed and everything, but the tight-fisted music companies don't want their music slipping into Asia without them putting a mark-up on it. My current cravings (intensified by my work computers' lack of a working CD-ROM drive) are probably going to be satiated through Magnatune, which _does_ let you download their music anywhere in the world. And it's cheap! Personally, I'm not a big fan of electronica and rock-with-lots-of-distortion in it, so a lot of their catalogue is wasted on me, but they have some really nice classical music you should definitely give a listen to. In rock, I can recommend Plunkett and Arthur Yoria.

(Not affiliated with Magnatune, just a satisfied customer!)

I hear you; as someone who frequently gets "music cravings" (mmm must get some rock mmm musicals etc.), I think it's tragic that Amazon (or iTunes, etc.) would like me to buy from them, I would like to buy from them, this is all completely legal and allowed and everything, but the tight-fisted music companies don't want their music slipping into Asia without them putting a mark-up on it. My current cravings (intensified by my work computers' lack of a working CD-ROM drive) are probably going to be satiated through Magnatune, which _does_ let you download their music anywhere in the world. And it's cheap! Personally, I'm not a big fan of electronica and rock-with-lots-of-distortion in it, so a lot of their catalogue is wasted on me, but they have some really nice classical music you should definitely give a listen to. In rock, I can recommend Plunkett and Arthur Yoria.

(Not affiliated with Magnatune, just a satisfied customer!)

It's the most insane thing I've ever seen. You're basically renting music. At least it would be tolerable if there was ONE standard for copy protected music, that format was free of patent encumbrance and any player could use it. And there was some kind of standards body that would ensure that the next insanely great format would still play the old versions, or at least make sure there's an upgrade path so your 4,000 iTunes songs don't go down the toilet if something ever happened to Apple.

Imagine this applied to TV's. Your TV would work with DirecTV but not Dish Network. You could get ABC and WB on broadcast, but not CBS and Fox has its own standard that doesn't work with any of the others. In any other circumstance it seems totally insane.

This applies to video codecs as well and DVD's.

I have records that are 60 years old that will still play. I've got film that's almost that old that you can put in any standard projector and holes in the film line up with the sprocket and you can watch the movie. How many of you have a portable music player that's more than five years old?

That's why I get my music at Magnatune. It's DRM free and half the money goes to the artist. You can listen to the whole CD before you buy it and if it's one you really like, you can kick in a couple extra bucks for the artist. If it's one that only has one or two songs you like, don't pay as much. You don't have the selection of a big label but there's plenty to pick from. If you like blues try Burnshee Thornside, indie rock try Brad Sucks, pop, or pick from classical, world and metal.

It's the most insane thing I've ever seen. You're basically renting music. At least it would be tolerable if there was ONE standard for copy protected music, that format was free of patent encumbrance and any player could use it. And there was some kind of standards body that would ensure that the next insanely great format would still play the old versions, or at least make sure there's an upgrade path so your 4,000 iTunes songs don't go down the toilet if something ever happened to Apple.

Imagine this applied to TV's. Your TV would work with DirecTV but not Dish Network. You could get ABC and WB on broadcast, but not CBS and Fox has its own standard that doesn't work with any of the others. In any other circumstance it seems totally insane.

This applies to video codecs as well and DVD's.

I have records that are 60 years old that will still play. I've got film that's almost that old that you can put in any standard projector and holes in the film line up with the sprocket and you can watch the movie. How many of you have a portable music player that's more than five years old?

That's why I get my music at Magnatune. It's DRM free and half the money goes to the artist. You can listen to the whole CD before you buy it and if it's one you really like, you can kick in a couple extra bucks for the artist. If it's one that only has one or two songs you like, don't pay as much. You don't have the selection of a big label but there's plenty to pick from. If you like blues try Burnshee Thornside, indie rock try Brad Sucks, pop, or pick from classical, world and metal.

It's the most insane thing I've ever seen. You're basically renting music. At least it would be tolerable if there was ONE standard for copy protected music, that format was free of patent encumbrance and any player could use it. And there was some kind of standards body that would ensure that the next insanely great format would still play the old versions, or at least make sure there's an upgrade path so your 4,000 iTunes songs don't go down the toilet if something ever happened to Apple.

Imagine this applied to TV's. Your TV would work with DirecTV but not Dish Network. You could get ABC and WB on broadcast, but not CBS and Fox has its own standard that doesn't work with any of the others. In any other circumstance it seems totally insane.

This applies to video codecs as well and DVD's.

I have records that are 60 years old that will still play. I've got film that's almost that old that you can put in any standard projector and holes in the film line up with the sprocket and you can watch the movie. How many of you have a portable music player that's more than five years old?

That's why I get my music at Magnatune. It's DRM free and half the money goes to the artist. You can listen to the whole CD before you buy it and if it's one you really like, you can kick in a couple extra bucks for the artist. If it's one that only has one or two songs you like, don't pay as much. You don't have the selection of a big label but there's plenty to pick from. If you like blues try Burnshee Thornside, indie rock try Brad Sucks, pop, or pick from classical, world and metal.

It's the most insane thing I've ever seen. You're basically renting music. At least it would be tolerable if there was ONE standard for copy protected music, that format was free of patent encumbrance and any player could use it. And there was some kind of standards body that would ensure that the next insanely great format would still play the old versions, or at least make sure there's an upgrade path so your 4,000 iTunes songs don't go down the toilet if something ever happened to Apple.

Imagine this applied to TV's. Your TV would work with DirecTV but not Dish Network. You could get ABC and WB on broadcast, but not CBS and Fox has its own standard that doesn't work with any of the others. In any other circumstance it seems totally insane.

This applies to video codecs as well and DVD's.

I have records that are 60 years old that will still play. I've got film that's almost that old that you can put in any standard projector and holes in the film line up with the sprocket and you can watch the movie. How many of you have a portable music player that's more than five years old?

That's why I get my music at Magnatune. It's DRM free and half the money goes to the artist. You can listen to the whole CD before you buy it and if it's one you really like, you can kick in a couple extra bucks for the artist. If it's one that only has one or two songs you like, don't pay as much. You don't have the selection of a big label but there's plenty to pick from. If you like blues try Burnshee Thornside, indie rock try Brad Sucks, pop, or pick from classical, world and metal.

There are plenty of ways. We just need to use them.

well, I'd rather buy music, digital or physical, from labels and musicians that aren't completely batshit crazy and let RIAA-sponsored musicians rot in hell for being a bunch of stupid, short-term thinking, greedy bastards and not even give them the free publicity that'd entail me pirating their music, but that's just me.

besides, I listen mostly to classical music, a genre which is known both for having a nice selection of non-RIAA-approved works, and for needing a much higher quality than you get with your average off-the-internet MP3.

Well, instead of stopping to buy music I'd suggest you start buying from the honest ones like http://www.magnatune.com/ where not only artists get 50% of what you pay, the music is without DRM and you can listen to everything beforehand and decide if you really like it...

magnatune.com youlicense.com flicktracks ioda promonet pumpaudio.com

If you wanted clips from Beatles, Rolling Stones, etc type music, forget it. It's just impractical for the little guy. Maybe you could do like someone else suggested here and get a band/musician to cook something up that sounds like the song you want.

I would argue that if the RIAA is between a rock and a hard place, they should be left to do what everyone else does in a capitalist system: adapt.

Actually finding what you're looking for on either bittorrent sites or gnutella & co is a pain. I'll be damned if 95% of people with classical music share any Bach that isn't BVW 147, 565, or 582. As a matter of fact, I've accumulated about a dozen different playings of "Ode to Joy." Other than those and one of the Brandenburg concertos, good luck - you're gonna need it. I'd pay to not have to sort through trash results and get decent downloads rates reliably. Other companies have figured this out: E-Classical, Magnatune and of course Apple iTunes have figured it out. With EMI's selling of standard MP3s, I think they're beginning to figure it out. The ones that don't "figure it out" will go the way of the Dodo.

Amarok is lighter than iTunes, it can sync iPod's flawlessly, (rip and put on music from any computer, any iPod) iTunes is not a reason to stay on Mac/Windows.

but I haven't found anything that works well for syncing video and I can't purchase music from the store. The kicker is, I would probably purchase LOTS more music if I had a solid linux port.

Of course you can buy music. Recent versions of Amarok have Magnatune built right in. You can buy high bitrate MP3s or even FLACs. iPod won't play the FLACs, but you can easily transcode them into whatever MP3 bitrate you want.

Oh, you mean you can't buy things from the major record labels? OK, fair enough. I don't buy their stuff because they do not make it convenient for me to buy it. They want me to buy a plastic disc or get encumbered computer files. But if convenience is important to you and you don't mind jumping through the dual hoops of iTunes and DRM, then by all means just stick with OS X.

He has the music there, if we have similar playing devices, when not let me cherry pick a few songs off his immediately, then 3 days later when I'm syncing ask if I want to buy them? I get the music legally, after a few days free use, the IP holder gets their due ...

Once you pay the Danegeld you never get rid of the Dane. M$'s rent a music schemes are not a one time payment, and they will try to push everyone into it. Do you think they will pay the RIAA or artists what's fair? Yeah, right.

An alternative you left out is that artists adopt other methods of promoting themselves that don't involve suing people. That way, you get to trade as much of your friend's collection as you want. The artist gets promoted and everyone wins, except the mafiaa.

Try Magnatune for an indie iTunes-style site. You can listen to a stream first and buy the albums you want at the price you decide they are worth, directly through Rhythmbox, if you like. If you're a cheap bastard and can stand wading through sewers full of shit to find something good for free, try Jamendo.

Ah, so what you're saying in a nutshell is that everyone you know are horrible thieves who don't care about the artists they are listening to or the music industry in general? Good to know.

There are plenty of artists who understand that making a copy is not theft. They have already provided more music than you could listen to with the rest of your life. See the internet archive's live music depositories and magnatune for a start.

I would rather have a tangible backup for when my hard drive crashes. ... t may take time, but I'm going to be more than happy to re-rip 900 CDs than spend another $900 to buy the albums again.

That is one service the music publishers actually provide. Pressed CDs are tangible and durable. This small service is more than outweighed by predatory practices that screw everyone but a few executives at three big music companies. If you want to look for harm to artists, look no further than the monopoly distorted market for music. They are not doing well in a non-free market. The user is faced with the fact that CDs and albums are the only legal way to get your hands on the vast majority of recorded music history.

I'm not so happy about re-ripping. The beauty of free music is that you can copy your properly ripped and tagged archive as often as you like. My entire music collection is never more than an grsync away from another jukebox.

Unsigned band who sees their first major-label contract as their shot at the big time and all their dreams come true: "Where do we sign? We brought our peeeens!"

This is only true if the band doesn't know much. The only thing, other than sucking the blood of entertainers, major labels are "good" for is marketing. However the internet makes it easier for new musicans to breakout. Digital recording is easy and doesn't take much hardware, relatively to analogue at least, and a band can use the computers in the public library or net cafe to create their own pages and profiles on MySpace or upload music to Magnatunes or any other of a number of cheap or Creative Commons websites. While more effort may be needed for a band to get their music out, than having a major label do it, it's easier than it ever has been for musicans to break out. And instead of the label keeping most of the money, the band gets to keep most of it this way.

These jerks think they define popular culture. They don't.

DRM doesn't work. People steal the stuff before it's encoded with the DRM. The key is always distributed with the content or recoverable.

DRM can't work. Their attempts are hilarious. In order to be perceived by a human it has to be rendered in analog format, at which point capturing and encoding it in an open format is trivial in all cases.

DRM shouldn't work. If they won't sell me the content for the device I want to play it on when I want to play it where I want to play it, I'll convert it and to hell with what they think I should be allowed to do. Fair use.

DRM is a security risk. I will not surrender control of my PC to render your content.

The more they annoy people, the more visibility worthy indie acts get. People will listen to their popmart derivative garbage less.

I am personally opposed to straight pirating the stuff but I have to admit my conviction on the subject is wavering at this point.

This might actually be a good thing. How? Internet radio webcasters could still use non-evil licensed music such as available on places like magnatune.com. That would then give the non-evil music more air-play and boost its acceptance over that of the companies with the old business model of music (based on rape the listener just enough to avoid their death). Carried far enough, maybe the old business model will finally die the death it deserves.

I recommend http://www.magnatune.com/ as a substitute for iTunes. Also, amaroK affiliates with them too, afaik.

The RIAA is not the government. They do not dole out authority; we, the consumer, do. I am perfectly willing to pay for my music. I will not, however, pay the RIAA. The fewer artists who sign to the RIAA, the more artists go independent, which leaves more artists I can buy music from and feel good about it. When I buy music from these artists, I know they're getting money. I know I'm paying the money to a free man or woman, not one who sold their life into indentured servitude. I know they're making more then 2% of the money I pay them, I know they're not driving down other independent artists with legal action. As a consumer, I don't care whether they like the way I behave. If I do something illegal, I would, in fact, expect the law to be enforced. There is nothing, however, which forces a false choice of "buy RIAA, never listen to music, or commit copyright infringement." The RIAA is not the only organization which deals in music, as much as they'd like to be. Have you ever seen http://wwww.magnatune.com/ or http://www.emusic.com? Many independent artists are even sold on Amazon! Payola, questionable lobbying regarding copyright extension, and illegitimate tactics regarding lawsuits (including the prosecution of those who were either known (or should have been known) known to be not guilty along with those suspected to be) make the RIAA the problem, not the solution.

The entertainment industry is obsessed with the idea of "casual piracy," or the occasional sharing of content between friends.

Sad, because non-evil labels actually encourage sharing your music with friends.

I just wish I had friends to share my music with. =( No one else I know can stand Artemis, whose music sounds like a mix of Enya and trip-hop to me.

The entertainment industry is obsessed with the idea of "casual piracy," or the occasional sharing of content between friends.

Sad, because non-evil labels actually encourage sharing your music with friends.

I just wish I had friends to share my music with. =( No one else I know can stand Artemis, whose music sounds like a mix of Enya and trip-hop to me.

The entertainment industry is obsessed with the idea of "casual piracy," or the occasional sharing of content between friends.

Sad, because non-evil labels actually encourage sharing your music with friends.

I just wish I had friends to share my music with. =( No one else I know can stand Artemis, whose music sounds like a mix of Enya and trip-hop to me.

Yes, there are *some* people who will not produce information-products (including software, music, images, or what-have-you) if they cannot globally enforce copy restrictions. Agreed. Such people should, IMO, go in to a different line of work. That is perfectly acceptable for a very simple reason: there will be more than enough people who find good reasons to produce such works in the absence of copyright restrictions. Some people will find an alternative means of making money off freely-duplicated works, and others just because they are altruistic.

Remember that people pay good money for their hardware, and copyright restrictions mean they cannot make full use of it. Copyright isn't actually a "freedom" for the person producing a work....people will still be completely free to produce works without copyright restrictions. Copright may be a "benefit" to the producers of a work (though in practice it is not; it is only a benefit to the distributors of the work, but I won't get into that here), but to call it a "freedom" is incorrect. Copyright law is a restriction on freedom to everyone in the world, and if such a freedom is going to be globally sacrificed, there had better be a damn good reason for it.

The only reason you have given is the false premise that without these restrictions, no-one will produce knowledge-products. Not only is this false in theory (since some people will produce stuff for free, and since some people will find ways of making money off knowledge-products in the absence of copyright restrictions), but there are lots of examples of businesses that make money off a free end-product, and of profoundly useful products made without any profit motive. And there are more where those came from.

That last set of links is pretty important. Google gives all of its services away for free, and yet has a market cap of over 100 billion. Not only are there business models built around free products, but they are very profitable and fiercely competitive.

Also check out this and this. Copyright is still there, but it is unenforced upon the consumer. It will be interesting to see how this selective approach to enforcement will pan out.

It is true that a farmer who gives away his crops for free would go broke, and if farmers could not legally force people to pay for their products then there would be no farmers. However, this observation not apply to information products. Information is fundamentally different from physical products, and business models surrounding it wind up taking a different form than traditional business models (a form which includes a free and/or freely redistributable product).

What we are dealing with is a new kind of abundance. Oxygen is an abundant resource, (anyone can get it for free because it just never runs out). Traditional capitalistic wisdom says that it is not possible to build a business around such resources, and further that no one will produce them because of that. Information is also abundant, once it exists (since it can be duplicated at zero cost by anyone). But it is also strangely non-abundant, since it's initial production requires an expenditure of resources. Traditional capitalistic models have a very hard time categorizing it...is it abundant or isn't it? Copyright law is an attempt at forcing it in to the "limited" category so that the traditional models wil

The fees for licensing might not exist, depending on what one plays. As I understand it, there is a lot of music to be played under licenses that allow sharing and cost no money. I hate to keep bringing up the same example repeatedly, but Magnatune.com lets you download anything from their catalog under a Creative Commons license that allows non-commercial rebroadcast in any medium (in a brief peek I saw some classical music licensed under the BY-NC-SA v1.0, US English version). I don't work for Magnatune nor do I benefit from mentioning them at all; they are doing what I think others could do as well and I believe their catalog will greatly benefit anyone looking to put together an Internet radio station of their own. Getting tracks from them is negotiating a deal with someone sufficiently empowered to license it to you.

To distribute the data, perhaps there's some sort of cooperative model which would let the listeners take on some of the load of rebroadcasting. Ideally, one would visit a website and without any setup or programming skill they could simultaneously listen to the station and share it with others. Would this would cut down on the transmission costs to the point where a consumer-grade "broadband" Internet connection work? This line might be inexpensive enough that many people already have they Internet connection they need to do the job. Some hosters could help drive down the cost of the station further still—Dreamhost.com has very inexpensive hosting packages with high bandwidth quotas and lots of storage. Depending on how one defines an Internet radio station, a playlist with a bunch of track files could qualify. Maybe you could run a program that concatenates tracks together creating a seamless audio stream.

One of the terms I've been throwing around in a fast and loose way is "Internet radio station". Jamendo.org, kahvi.org, and Magnatune.com are labels which each stream all of their catalog on-demand and gratis (with varying levels of quality and in various formats—Jamendo and kahvi can use high quality Ogg Vorbis files and Magnatune lets one download 128kbps MP3s with an automated announcer on the end of each track). Are they radio stations? Magnatune calls their playlists radio stations and I can't see why they aren't.

If you like the new sounds in Pidgin, you can thank the artist who developed them by going to Magnatune.com and buy his album. Not just because you like the Pidgin sounds, not just because you like Indie Rock, but because you like independent music and independent music publishers like Magnatune. Lot's of good karma available by buying this one.

I recently got into indy music a little bit - mostly jazz. I was never a fan of the genre before, but I found some real jems in there (Thursday Group, Drop Trio, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey). I'd highly recommend that every self-respecting geek at least consider browsing through the catalogs of services like http://www.magnatune.com/ before buying their next RIAA-produced album.

That'd be Magnatune, http://www.magnatune.com/ . They really do have some fantastic music there.

Magnatune lets you listen to all the music before you buy.

http://www.magnatune.com/

They do have some classical but I have no idea if you will like it. Still, please check them out; I like them.

Well, a couple options for you then would be Magnatune ($5/album, downloadable, no DRM, your choice of FLAC, VBR MP3, Vorbis, and/or AAC; also lets you download 128k MP3 files of all the songs gratis so you know what you're buying) or a used CD/anything store or website like Half.com (used CDs). If you know of a used CD store nearby, you could always go there to check out what they've got, and perhaps they have a way for you to sample the CDs like so many of them do.

A lot of people seem to take this kind of opportunity to promote emusic for its anti-DRM stance. I do not understand this phenomenon. Emusic only abstains from DRM as a business strategy to gain market share. They offer no other ideological benefits, and were Apple to suddenly license FairPlay, they would most likely switch over to that immediately, unless they judged that their customer base would react too negatively.

I am a fan of Magnatune.com, for their outstanding policies that allow me to consume commercial music without feeling unclean. They offer decent quality full length previews of all their tracks, are open format friendly (absolutely NO DRM), split the profits 50% with the artist, and even license all their tracks under Creative Commons Non-commercial. Seriously, it's a geek's dream come true. See more here: http://magnatune.com/info/attribs

I actually happen to be listening to a stream from them right now. I'd highly recommend Drop Trio (http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/droptrio-ceza nne/) and Thursday Group (http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/thursdaygroup -unclemean/).

(Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with magnatune.com, etc, etc, I'm just a very satisfied customer.)

A lot of people seem to take this kind of opportunity to promote emusic for its anti-DRM stance. I do not understand this phenomenon. Emusic only abstains from DRM as a business strategy to gain market share. They offer no other ideological benefits, and were Apple to suddenly license FairPlay, they would most likely switch over to that immediately, unless they judged that their customer base would react too negatively.

I am a fan of Magnatune.com, for their outstanding policies that allow me to consume commercial music without feeling unclean. They offer decent quality full length previews of all their tracks, are open format friendly (absolutely NO DRM), split the profits 50% with the artist, and even license all their tracks under Creative Commons Non-commercial. Seriously, it's a geek's dream come true. See more here: http://magnatune.com/info/attribs

I actually happen to be listening to a stream from them right now. I'd highly recommend Drop Trio (http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/droptrio-ceza nne/) and Thursday Group (http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/thursdaygroup -unclemean/).

(Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with magnatune.com, etc, etc, I'm just a very satisfied customer.)

A lot of people seem to take this kind of opportunity to promote emusic for its anti-DRM stance. I do not understand this phenomenon. Emusic only abstains from DRM as a business strategy to gain market share. They offer no other ideological benefits, and were Apple to suddenly license FairPlay, they would most likely switch over to that immediately, unless they judged that their customer base would react too negatively.

I am a fan of Magnatune.com, for their outstanding policies that allow me to consume commercial music without feeling unclean. They offer decent quality full length previews of all their tracks, are open format friendly (absolutely NO DRM), split the profits 50% with the artist, and even license all their tracks under Creative Commons Non-commercial. Seriously, it's a geek's dream come true. See more here: http://magnatune.com/info/attribs

I actually happen to be listening to a stream from them right now. I'd highly recommend Drop Trio (http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/droptrio-ceza nne/) and Thursday Group (http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/thursdaygroup -unclemean/).

(Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with magnatune.com, etc, etc, I'm just a very satisfied customer.)

There's always Magnatune; they offer FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, VBR MP3, AAC, and even 128k MP3 (gratis) for all their albums. Hell, if you like Metallica, even they offer FLAC and MP3 recordings of their concerts. More sites that sell or offer FLACs are listed on FLAC's website.

*chimes in*

Arthur Yoria's amazing debut album is downloading even as I speak, and downloaded Lisa DeBenedictis' Tigers last week. For me, the biggest selling point - apart from the feel-good feeling you get by supporting somebody trying to make money honestly, and being able to listen to the music I bought within thirty minutes of putting money down on the virtual table - is being able to download high-quality MP3s to listen to at work, and high-quality OGGs to play on my home computer, direct from the publisher.

Thanks to some site updates over the last few months, it's now much easier to find the kind of music you like (by being able to preview darn near everything on the website). You should definitely check it out.

Like the sister posts, I'm just a satisfied customer, and I hope they do well so they can get more indie artists interested, and more good albums released.

*chimes in*

Arthur Yoria's amazing debut album is downloading even as I speak, and downloaded Lisa DeBenedictis' Tigers last week. For me, the biggest selling point - apart from the feel-good feeling you get by supporting somebody trying to make money honestly, and being able to listen to the music I bought within thirty minutes of putting money down on the virtual table - is being able to download high-quality MP3s to listen to at work, and high-quality OGGs to play on my home computer, direct from the publisher.

Thanks to some site updates over the last few months, it's now much easier to find the kind of music you like (by being able to preview darn near everything on the website). You should definitely check it out.

Like the sister posts, I'm just a satisfied customer, and I hope they do well so they can get more indie artists interested, and more good albums released.

Maybe not exactly what you are looking for, but I love Magnatune Lot's of different music styles, including classical/instrumental.

Plus:
- Listen to ALL music in good streaming quality, not time restricted.
- Different download formats, including lossless.
- Cheap. Starting from $8 per album, where you can donate more if desired.
- Fair for their artists.

Min:
- Unknown artists.
- plenty of meh/bad artists.

When looking for a place to find non-DRM'd music, I considered eMusic, but decided against it because their decision to sell unrestricted music was merely a technical business maneuver. I had no indication (at least at a glance) that they wouldn't immediately change that policy if Apple were to license FairPlay, nor did I trust them as a company any more than the RIAA players. The fact that their interface didn't support linux also seemed to be a warning sign.

Then I found Magnatune, and I must say, it truly feels good to be able to do business with a label and not feel like I have to take a shower afterwards. Their policies run much, much deeper than merely distributing music in free formats. As already mentioned, the consumer can select a price for a download or shipped CD after listening to full length decent-quality previews, and the artist gets 50% instead of a fraction of that. But more importantly, I get that warm fuzzy feeling from this company that they're not out there to screw me over.

Their business model relies on exposure rather than limitations. They encourage you to share your purchased music with up to three friends, confident that massive piracy is a non-issue since the mid-quality versions are already available to everyone. (Indeed, you can redistribute those versions yourself if you choose, and if you're like me then you can't even tell the difference.) All their music is put under a Creative Commons (Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike) license, which means derivative works are explicitly encouraged. Licensing accounts for a large portion of their income and is made exceptionally easy through a web interface.

Finally, the website is well designed. They host a number of streams, offer both an embedded flash audio player and plain hyperlinks, and there even exists a plugin for Amarok for purchasing albums. How's that for linux-friendly?

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Magnatune except as a satisfied customer who truly believes in what they are trying to achieve.

I purchased and recommend the following groups in particular: Drop Trio, Thursday Group, Liquid Zen

When looking for a place to find non-DRM'd music, I considered eMusic, but decided against it because their decision to sell unrestricted music was merely a technical business maneuver. I had no indication (at least at a glance) that they wouldn't immediately change that policy if Apple were to license FairPlay, nor did I trust them as a company any more than the RIAA players. The fact that their interface didn't support linux also seemed to be a warning sign.

Then I found Magnatune, and I must say, it truly feels good to be able to do business with a label and not feel like I have to take a shower afterwards. Their policies run much, much deeper than merely distributing music in free formats. As already mentioned, the consumer can select a price for a download or shipped CD after listening to full length decent-quality previews, and the artist gets 50% instead of a fraction of that. But more importantly, I get that warm fuzzy feeling from this company that they're not out there to screw me over.

Their business model relies on exposure rather than limitations. They encourage you to share your purchased music with up to three friends, confident that massive piracy is a non-issue since the mid-quality versions are already available to everyone. (Indeed, you can redistribute those versions yourself if you choose, and if you're like me then you can't even tell the difference.) All their music is put under a Creative Commons (Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike) license, which means derivative works are explicitly encouraged. Licensing accounts for a large portion of their income and is made exceptionally easy through a web interface.

Finally, the website is well designed. They host a number of streams, offer both an embedded flash audio player and plain hyperlinks, and there even exists a plugin for Amarok for purchasing albums. How's that for linux-friendly?

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Magnatune except as a satisfied customer who truly believes in what they are trying to achieve.

I purchased and recommend the following groups in particular: Drop Trio, Thursday Group, Liquid Zen

When looking for a place to find non-DRM'd music, I considered eMusic, but decided against it because their decision to sell unrestricted music was merely a technical business maneuver. I had no indication (at least at a glance) that they wouldn't immediately change that policy if Apple were to license FairPlay, nor did I trust them as a company any more than the RIAA players. The fact that their interface didn't support linux also seemed to be a warning sign.

Then I found Magnatune, and I must say, it truly feels good to be able to do business with a label and not feel like I have to take a shower afterwards. Their policies run much, much deeper than merely distributing music in free formats. As already mentioned, the consumer can select a price for a download or shipped CD after listening to full length decent-quality previews, and the artist gets 50% instead of a fraction of that. But more importantly, I get that warm fuzzy feeling from this company that they're not out there to screw me over.

Their business model relies on exposure rather than limitations. They encourage you to share your purchased music with up to three friends, confident that massive piracy is a non-issue since the mid-quality versions are already available to everyone. (Indeed, you can redistribute those versions yourself if you choose, and if you're like me then you can't even tell the difference.) All their music is put under a Creative Commons (Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike) license, which means derivative works are explicitly encouraged. Licensing accounts for a large portion of their income and is made exceptionally easy through a web interface.

Finally, the website is well designed. They host a number of streams, offer both an embedded flash audio player and plain hyperlinks, and there even exists a plugin for Amarok for purchasing albums. How's that for linux-friendly?

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Magnatune except as a satisfied customer who truly believes in what they are trying to achieve.

I purchased and recommend the following groups in particular: Drop Trio, Thursday Group, Liquid Zen

When looking for a place to find non-DRM'd music, I considered eMusic, but decided against it because their decision to sell unrestricted music was merely a technical business maneuver. I had no indication (at least at a glance) that they wouldn't immediately change that policy if Apple were to license FairPlay, nor did I trust them as a company any more than the RIAA players. The fact that their interface didn't support linux also seemed to be a warning sign.

Then I found Magnatune, and I must say, it truly feels good to be able to do business with a label and not feel like I have to take a shower afterwards. Their policies run much, much deeper than merely distributing music in free formats. As already mentioned, the consumer can select a price for a download or shipped CD after listening to full length decent-quality previews, and the artist gets 50% instead of a fraction of that. But more importantly, I get that warm fuzzy feeling from this company that they're not out there to screw me over.

Their business model relies on exposure rather than limitations. They encourage you to share your purchased music with up to three friends, confident that massive piracy is a non-issue since the mid-quality versions are already available to everyone. (Indeed, you can redistribute those versions yourself if you choose, and if you're like me then you can't even tell the difference.) All their music is put under a Creative Commons (Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike) license, which means derivative works are explicitly encouraged. Licensing accounts for a large portion of their income and is made exceptionally easy through a web interface.

Finally, the website is well designed. They host a number of streams, offer both an embedded flash audio player and plain hyperlinks, and there even exists a plugin for Amarok for purchasing albums. How's that for linux-friendly?

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Magnatune except as a satisfied customer who truly believes in what they are trying to achieve.

I purchased and recommend the following groups in particular: Drop Trio, Thursday Group, Liquid Zen

magnatune.com is great and I really want to see them prosper.

They offer you a range of prices you can pay for an album; the suggested default is $8, but if you like only one song on the album you might decide to pay only $4. You can even pay more than $8 if you really want to encourage the band.

Magnatune splits half of the take with the artist. If you pay $8 for an album, the band gets $4. That's awesome. Compare with evil big labels, which give a cut of the profits, but then cook the books and claim they never have any profits.

You can download the music in any or all of these formats: uncompressed wave files (CD-quality), CD-quality lossless FLAC files, Ogg Vorbis, or MP3.

Before you buy, you can listen to all the music, not just 20-second snips; you only can play it at 128kbps MP3, but that's enough to decide if you like the music.

They also have a policy that you can simply give away up to 3 copies of each album you buy! Viral marketing perhaps, but it's still nice of them.

Disclaimer: I have no connection with these guys other than being a very satisfied customer.

http://magnatune.com/

steveha

magnatune.com is great and I really want to see them prosper.

They offer you a range of prices you can pay for an album; the suggested default is $8, but if you like only one song on the album you might decide to pay only $4. You can even pay more than $8 if you really want to encourage the band.

Magnatune splits half of the take with the artist. If you pay $8 for an album, the band gets $4. That's awesome. Compare with evil big labels, which give a cut of the profits, but then cook the books and claim they never have any profits.

You can download the music in any or all of these formats: uncompressed wave files (CD-quality), CD-quality lossless FLAC files, Ogg Vorbis, or MP3.

Before you buy, you can listen to all the music, not just 20-second snips; you only can play it at 128kbps MP3, but that's enough to decide if you like the music.

They also have a policy that you can simply give away up to 3 copies of each album you buy! Viral marketing perhaps, but it's still nice of them.

Disclaimer: I have no connection with these guys other than being a very satisfied customer.

http://magnatune.com/

steveha

I second the recommendation for Magnatune.

I discovered Magnatune when Amarok integrated Magnatune playlists (for download or stream). In Amarok you can search through all of the artists by name or genre and listen to streams of all of the albums and songs for free. Amarok also integrates the ability to buy and download songs directly from Magnatune.

If you go to the Magnatune website, you can download "low" quality songs and albums for free under a Creative Commons license for non commercial use. I listen to many of these at work, and the low quality versions are as good as or better than most internet radio streams. You can also download high quality versions of albums in many formats (wav, flac, mp3, ogg ...), for as little as $5 or pay as much as you want. You can also order a CD to be sent to your house (you pay for the CD pressing).

There are tons of artists there, known and unknown. I recently found out a favorite group (Zilla) has started distributing their albums on Magnatune as well. FWIW, I first heard Zilla at a local venue here in Hood River OR (BFE) last year, and I am now a frequent buyer of their material.

A good place to start is to check out some of the compilations of Magnatune artists. DJ Cary has put together several comps, and Magnatune has several of their own as well.
http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/

allofmp3.com would like to thank you for your business. It knows you have no choice in DRMless online retailers who offer high quality files without DRM at a good price (well, with the exception of magnatune, but they have a limited catalog), and appreciate your choosing them for your online music needs.

I have been happy with Magnatune in the past. They offer audio in several formats.

2. Sign those artists to highly unfair contracts because there is no other way to get music distributed.

"What the record companies can not apparently figure out is that if priced affordably, some sales are money in the pocket versus no sales and no money in the pocket."

Oh, I'm sure they know this, but what many Slashdotters don't know (after all, we're programmers, not marketers or economists) is that the optimal point on the supply/demand curve is usually the point at which the most money is made over time. It might make perfectly good sense to you that the right point is where you sell the most units, or where you make the most profit per unit sold, but that's not the classical way of picking the price point. And, it's a supply/demand curve, not a slope or a line, so people in the business of setting pricing (for whatever they're selling) must deal with elasticity, market size, and those other niggling things that we get to ignore when we write "just lower the price, morons!"

If you're boggling over this, think about Kenneth Cole vs. Sears, or, say, a luxury car company vs. Hyundai, or even Adobe PhotoShop vs. The Gimp. Kenneth Cole and Cadillac and Adobe could certainly move a lot more units if they lowered their prices dramatically, but they don't want to. It's not, as you've put it, because they "can not apparently figure out" pricing theory.

For what it's worth, CD prices have indeed been in free fall lately (new releases were $18 - $20 just a few years ago and now can be had for $13 - $14) as the industry reacts to new competition from piracy and whatnot. But Warner Music had something like a 6% operating margin last year... there's not much room to play with.

"Now, if they were smart.... record companies would *give away* music from bands just starting out and from the biggest bands out there and make money from tours. Bands in the middle of the spectrum could be the "middle-class" of the record companies that could provide the most profit after small bands graduate into the middle class and start selling their music, touring as they want."

The rough consensus among Slashdotters seems to be that the right way to run a record company is to:

• Charge much less than $13 a CD or $1.00 a track -- it's commonly pointed out that Allofmp3's Pay for the production costs of the music, but give the artists the copyright on the recording
• Pay the artists higher royalties

...to which you've added:

• Give away music and take a cut of the artists touring profits

If all of this is so obvious to so many people (at least here on Slashdot), it raises the question of why this hasn't yet been tried. Even Magnatune won't pay for studio time and asks that customers pay about $0.80 per track (and won't even accept less than $0.50 per track). Another really cool company, CDBaby, pays musicians well, but doesn't help with production costs and still asks for $14 a CD. And yet just about the only time we hear about either of these great companies is here on Slashdot.

Why don't you and a couple of other clever Slashdotters put your heads together and really do it right?