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First off, you save your silly rant for someone else and for the right context. The article has to do with ripping CDs that you own for your own use, which the RIAA doesn't recognize as valid, but it falls squarely under Fair Use laws. It is not just my opinion that they are wrong on this issue. It is the clear law in the U.S., as confirmed by the courts in the Sony case back in 1984.

Second, I've spent (rough ballpark guess) $15,000 over the past 25 years or so to amass my entirely legal music collection, including several hundred records, about 1000 CDs and a couple hundred albums from eMusic and a couple dozen more on Mindawn and Jamendo. Musicians have made a lot of money off of me and I've gotten more than my money's worth from them.

Third, I am active in several online communities devoted to progressive rock, and am personal friends (online) with several professional musicians, managers and other people in the business. I've even provided the (modest) cover art for a CD from one of my professional friends, which you can find here. I promote (though not formally nor professionally) a few groups in particular whenever possible (Spock's Beard, The Flower Kings, and The Tangent) who work for a label that is an RIAA member and I have legally purchased all the recordings available from each of those groups. These are exceptional artists who merit much more attention than they get. In fact, I've purchased roughly a third of everything this label has ever released.

And third, I have created my own music and have shared it freely with others. You can find one of my tracks here. I can provide a few more upon request and several more if I get off my duff and digitally master them, but honestly I don't think too many people would be interested.

So in summary, I think this gives me more than the right to express a simple opinion on the RIAA. All I said was that their opinion on the matter of ripping is as irrelevant as my opinion of them is, which is a objectively true and correct statement. Fair Use laws are clearly on the side of those of us who rip our legally acquired and licensed music to our own devices for our own use.

And finally despite its correctness as a statement of fact, it was clearly and obviously meant to be a joke. Someone here is being illogical and childish, but it surely isn't I. Maybe you should criticize what I am actually saying rather than your completely wrong prejudices. That's not too much to ask, is it?

First off, you save your silly rant for someone else and for the right context. The article has to do with ripping CDs that you own for your own use, which the RIAA doesn't recognize as valid, but it falls squarely under Fair Use laws. It is not just my opinion that they are wrong on this issue. It is the clear law in the U.S., as confirmed by the courts in the Sony case back in 1984.

Second, I've spent (rough ballpark guess) $15,000 over the past 25 years or so to amass my entirely legal music collection, including several hundred records, about 1000 CDs and a couple hundred albums from eMusic and a couple dozen more on Mindawn and Jamendo. Musicians have made a lot of money off of me and I've gotten more than my money's worth from them.

Third, I am active in several online communities devoted to progressive rock, and am personal friends (online) with several professional musicians, managers and other people in the business. I've even provided the (modest) cover art for a CD from one of my professional friends, which you can find here. I promote (though not formally nor professionally) a few groups in particular whenever possible (Spock's Beard, The Flower Kings, and The Tangent) who work for a label that is an RIAA member and I have legally purchased all the recordings available from each of those groups. These are exceptional artists who merit much more attention than they get. In fact, I've purchased roughly a third of everything this label has ever released.

And third, I have created my own music and have shared it freely with others. You can find one of my tracks here. I can provide a few more upon request and several more if I get off my duff and digitally master them, but honestly I don't think too many people would be interested.

So in summary, I think this gives me more than the right to express a simple opinion on the RIAA. All I said was that their opinion on the matter of ripping is as irrelevant as my opinion of them is, which is a objectively true and correct statement. Fair Use laws are clearly on the side of those of us who rip our legally acquired and licensed music to our own devices for our own use.

And finally despite its correctness as a statement of fact, it was clearly and obviously meant to be a joke. Someone here is being illogical and childish, but it surely isn't I. Maybe you should criticize what I am actually saying rather than your completely wrong prejudices. That's not too much to ask, is it?

If you like indie prog, Mindawn is pretty good, though they lack in most other areas. They sell OGGs and FLACs, and they support Linux, too. http://www.mindawn.com/

http://mindawn.com/ would be the rival.
Don't lose your music either, you can't re-download stuff you have paid for, like for instance, your proxy server blocks their little downloader app (which is currently the only way to purchase entire albums from the store). Still waiting on a response for this issue.

Just think one day the artists and the fans might connect directly on the internet with no middle man in between to screw the artists and sue the fans.

There are a few artists that do that, but really, what we need is a middleman (or two) that doesn't screw the artists and sue the fans. Take a good, hard look at MagnaTune -- even if you pay the lowest possible price ($5/album), 50% of it goes straight to the artist (and $2.50 is more than the RIAA will pay them), and you are legally allowed to share it with 5 people. You get to listen to the whole thing in mp3 before you buy, and you can download the whole thing in FLAC once you do pay for it. (FLAC is lossless, so you can burn it straight to CD as if you'd bought it at the music store, only it probably cost you less, and you know the artist got more.)

Start supporting these guys now. They might not have the bands you like now, but you'll find music to like, and you won't be supporting the RIAA. Get even your non-techie friends doing this, and soon enough, we could actually make the RIAA irrelevant.

Sounds like http://www.mindawn.com/ is what you're looking for. They sell lossless (flac) and lossy (ogg) sound files. No DRM. Their catalog is growing steadily, and they work with a lot of independents.

You are right about the selection. Navigating to the "punk" section will show you 2 albums: since the main page is designed to show 4 albums it repeats the same 2 albums twice.

Then, when you click on an album, you get: http://mindawn.com/albums/1336 $1.24 per track. So no, this is another music service with no selection, even by indy standards (2 albums per genre anyone?), but at least it's way more expensive.

http://www.mindawn.com/news/34?PHPSESSID=109de8547 5f3274709a8bd0cb78e05d0

You can also buy music from stores that sell their music in DRM-Free MP3 and Ogg formats like AudioLunchbox, Mindawn, or MP3Tunes ;)

Use either eMusic (http://www.emusic.com/ or Mindawn (http://www.mindawn.com./ It's the only way to be sure the music is yours to do with as you please. If either of these sites don't have the title I'm looking for, I buy the CD and rip it myself.

Music and art have existed for quite a long time, and for the most part there was always someone with a lot of money behind the scenes to fund it lest it not exist.

There are alternative distribution methods and organizations out there other than the RIAA, such as Weed Share and Mindawn, one of my personal favorites for offering both lossy and lossless files and no DRM based on the trust to their custmers. Both are great for the independant artist both in terms of the services they offer and compensation artists get from them. While a noble ideal, I fear that there will always be people that just don't give a fuck and want something for nothing and screw anyone else, because no matter how inexpensive or easy you make it to get your music, they only want it for free.

Buy it, own it, use it! And in FLAC lossless format too. It may not be mainstream, but I'm sick of being spoon fed pop music and want to start at least supporting open formats and musicians.

http://www.mindawn.com/

Mindawn

Two I know of and have used:

http://www.mindawn.com/
http://www.livedownloads.com/

I'm sure there are others.

Mindawn seems to be more like a community site / online record company, rather than a music store in it's own right. *ANY* artists can sign up for $50 a year (or the current special deal of $50 for lifetime) and upload as many albums as they want, with 75% of the sale coming back to them if it's exclusive to Mindawn, and 55% if it isn't.

From the Artists FAQ:

Q. So what's the catch to get in to Mindawn?
A. It costs you as an artist just $50 per year to have your account, with as many albums and tracks as you want. You don't even have to print CDs -- just put some of those new songs you're working on up for sale online. You don't even have to even work around the concept of an "album" if you don't want to. Just create your account and load your content -- you can be 'live' within 30 minutes of opening your account. UPDATE: For a limited time the $50 fee is for a lifetime account, don't miss this limited opportunity to sign up with Mindawn for a one time fee of $50 for LIFE!

Q. How much do I make from those sales?
A. We have two royalty models:

75% for electronic content exclusive to Mindawn. However, you can change at any time to the second model:

55% for non-exclusive electronic content

That means you get either 55% or 75% of the total price -- far better for artists than most record labels or iTMS.

So while they do work with record companies, a lot (most?) of their music will inevitably be from independant artists, and anyone who wants to share their work. From the Customer FAQ:

Q. What kind of content can I expect?
A. You won't likely find major label releases -- we're geared more towards supporting independent artists and small record labels. Our system is also not closed to anyone, and we are adding content at an exponential rate. You can use our sophisticated search technology to find music you will likely be interested in, as well as demo the available songs as mentioned above. You're likely to discover some hidden gems that you wouldn't have found any other way.

Not a system for everyone, since many students will be more interested in the big names which tend to get pirated in the first place, but a nice enough system, and the artists certainly aren't hard done by. They even provide software, MARS (Mindawn Audio Ripping Software), for ripping CD, WAV or AIFF to OGG or FLAC format for using with their system. That's not to say that you couldn't use flac/oggenc, especially since it isn't F/OSS, but it's nice that they've provided their own multi-platform utility with a GUI to help out in that regard... not to mention the fact that the MARS documentation says that you need oggenc/flac/cdparanoia installed on Linux in any case.

Mindawn seems to be more like a community site / online record company, rather than a music store in it's own right. *ANY* artists can sign up for $50 a year (or the current special deal of $50 for lifetime) and upload as many albums as they want, with 75% of the sale coming back to them if it's exclusive to Mindawn, and 55% if it isn't.

From the Artists FAQ:

Q. So what's the catch to get in to Mindawn?
A. It costs you as an artist just $50 per year to have your account, with as many albums and tracks as you want. You don't even have to print CDs -- just put some of those new songs you're working on up for sale online. You don't even have to even work around the concept of an "album" if you don't want to. Just create your account and load your content -- you can be 'live' within 30 minutes of opening your account. UPDATE: For a limited time the $50 fee is for a lifetime account, don't miss this limited opportunity to sign up with Mindawn for a one time fee of $50 for LIFE!

Q. How much do I make from those sales?
A. We have two royalty models:

75% for electronic content exclusive to Mindawn. However, you can change at any time to the second model:

55% for non-exclusive electronic content

That means you get either 55% or 75% of the total price -- far better for artists than most record labels or iTMS.

So while they do work with record companies, a lot (most?) of their music will inevitably be from independant artists, and anyone who wants to share their work. From the Customer FAQ:

Q. What kind of content can I expect?
A. You won't likely find major label releases -- we're geared more towards supporting independent artists and small record labels. Our system is also not closed to anyone, and we are adding content at an exponential rate. You can use our sophisticated search technology to find music you will likely be interested in, as well as demo the available songs as mentioned above. You're likely to discover some hidden gems that you wouldn't have found any other way.

Not a system for everyone, since many students will be more interested in the big names which tend to get pirated in the first place, but a nice enough system, and the artists certainly aren't hard done by. They even provide software, MARS (Mindawn Audio Ripping Software), for ripping CD, WAV or AIFF to OGG or FLAC format for using with their system. That's not to say that you couldn't use flac/oggenc, especially since it isn't F/OSS, but it's nice that they've provided their own multi-platform utility with a GUI to help out in that regard... not to mention the fact that the MARS documentation says that you need oggenc/flac/cdparanoia installed on Linux in any case.

Actually it is an application, so it makes the phrase "supports windows, os x, and linux" sound rather interesting indeed.

http://www.mindawn.com/download.php

Did you actually visit the site?

Mindawn, a revolutionary new online music and video service, has been selected by the University of California system as a partner to provide music and video to their approximate 200,000 large student population.

Universities across the country are facing increasing pressure to curb the practice of individuals distributing digital files of copyrighted songs and movies without permission on university networks. As creators and owners of intellectual property and licensed technology, UC has a strong commitment to upholding intellectual property laws, including the need to protect against the illegal sharing of copyrighted materials in digital format, which is where Mindawn comes in.

Most online music services tie the user to one or at best two computer platforms: iTunes is only for Mac OS X and Windows; Napster is Windows-only. Mindawn, on the other hand, works with all three major platforms -- Windows, Mac OS X and Linux -- and is fully compatible with all three. With Mindawn's cross-platform client software, you can even hear a full preview of the entire song, unlike competing services, which only offer brief excerpts.

Competitors also normally only offer music files that are reduced in quality through what's called " lossy compression". The more compressed a file is, the greater the loss in sound quality. By contrast, Mindawn offers its files in both Ogg Vorbis and FLAC formats. Ogg Vorbis, unlike MP3, is a totally free and open sound format, and offers superior sound quality compared to MP3 and other compression techniques. Meanwhile, FLAC is full CD quality and while 50% smaller, can easily be converted to AIFF or WAV files for use in standard CD players or converted to virtually any other lossy format for use on any portable media player.

Mindawn is the only online music service to offer FLAC and Ogg Vorbis as its standard music file formats, and is the only service to offer music in both "lossy" and "lossless" forms in addition to video.

"Mindawn will be a valuable partner for campuses instituting online entertainment programs because of its wide range of content by independent artists and its offer to allow UC students to market their own music," said David Walker, Director of Advanced Technology for the University of California, who oversaw the selection of vendors for UC . "This is an important endeavor that we are embarking on, and we are pleased to be working with an established leader on the project."

Shawn Gordon, President of Mindawn (theKompany) had this to say, "We are honored and excited to have been chosen to work with such a prestigious University system. We're confident that the technology we bring to the table will be a great fit for UC".

www.mindawn.com is pretty nice too. It's about the only place that sells songs in a lossless audio format (FLAC).

But hey, why let a little RTFA and RTFS get in the way of a little Linux-slagging, hey Bucky?

Cheers,

Ethelred

The other point is that yes, the number of tracks available is small. But Mindawn is actively looking for new and independent artists -- think of the site as a kind of CaféPress for music geeks, though of course some big-name artists (such as James LaBrie from DreamTheater) are coming soon.

Cheers,

Ethelred

The other point is that yes, the number of tracks available is small. But Mindawn is actively looking for new and independent artists -- think of the site as a kind of CaféPress for music geeks, though of course some big-name artists (such as James LaBrie from DreamTheater) are coming soon.

Cheers,

Ethelred

The other point is that yes, the number of tracks available is small. But Mindawn is actively looking for new and independent artists -- think of the site as a kind of CaféPress for music geeks, though of course some big-name artists (such as James LaBrie from DreamTheater) are coming soon.

Cheers,

Ethelred

2. Download the Mindawn Player for the platform of your choice.

3. Enjoy!

Cheers,

Ethelred

Of course. That is one of the ideas behind Mindawn -- providing an easy way for artists to sell their music online. You might think of it as CaféPress for musicians.

From Mindawn Artists' FAQ:

It costs you as an artist just $50 per year to have your account, with as many albums and tracks as you want. You don't even have to print CDs -- just put some of those new songs you're working on up for sale online. You don't even have to even work around the concept of an "album" if you don't want to. Just create your account and load your content -- you can be 'live' within 30 minutes of opening your account.

[...] We have two royalty models:

75% for electronic content exclusive to Mindawn. However, you can change at any time to the second model:

55% for non-exclusive electronic content

That means you get either 55% or 75% of the total price -- far better for artists than most record labels or iTMS.

And the /. article is rather misleading. The client is for Linux AND Windows AND Mac OS X. Also, the client is only for previewing songs -- you can buy via the website, ergo technically it's platform-independent. Mindawn isn't "targeting Linux" -- it supports Linux alongside other OSes.

(FWIW I know about the service because I did the graphics and eye candy for the site and software.)

Cheers,

Ethelred

This is what I was waiting for. This is the right way to do it. So, buddy out there, let's support the project if you want to see it grow. I'm downloading right now my first album, in FLAC format: it's "Creatures", by "Frogg Cafe'".
No, I have no idea about who frog cafe' are and what I'm downloading now. But I like Jazz :). 75MB downloaded 'till now. I'll post again when I'll have listened MY new music. What a beautiful thing, I can bring the files to my friend's house and let they hear it! Oh, by the way, which FLAC player do you suggest under Windows XP?