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That's My.MP3.com. No, it's not coming back. There's a similar service that is legal under my analysis in the forthcoming article. Check out MP3tunes. If its system is set up the way I recall it is, it will withstand a copyright infringement lawsuit, both direct and secondary.

It's not as hard anymore, if you avoid iTunes Music Store.

1. Set up an account - at Amazon MP3 Music Store, MP3Tunes, eMusic, others in time...
2. Hope they have a song you want (they might, they might not... probably not yet)
3. Buy the song (Just takes a click or two)
4. Put the song on any mp3 player (done, no drm at these stores!)
5. Play the song on Linux (well, need an mp3 codec but whatev, you need one in windows too)
6. Share the songs with your friends (Complaining that it's hard to share songs with your friends is the whole purpose of DRM. If you'd respect copyright and let your friends buy their own MP3's, we wouldn't need DRM. You're not legally allowed to redistribute copyrighted songs without authorization from the copyright holder - that goes way beyond fair use imho)

- Until 9/30 most all of the CDs are $7 which includes a physical CD and 192K MP3 files loaded nicely and permanently into your locker.

- One poster complained you can't download the MP3 file without installing an application. That's inaccurate. You can download all the tracks individually directly from the locker - no application install required. Just click on the triangle in the flash UI and select "download".

- We do provide several different applications for your convenience all of which work on Linux as well as the other PC OSes. There's an Album Downloader which will with one click download any new purchases and load into iTunes or your fave media player. There's also Locker Sync 3.0 which will sync your entire music library from locker to PC. So lots of different options.

- Slashdotters might be interested in our API (see: http://mp3tunes.com/api). My vision is all your music goes into your personal locker and then with a click can be streamed or synced to ANY device in the world. It's a very open view of the world and of your media. We have 100,000 lockers and a great list of devices coming by this holiday season all of which talk directly to a locker. We're even having a contest to spur developers for $10,000 to come up with new music devices/interfaces: See http://mp3tunes.com/contest

-- MR

- Until 9/30 most all of the CDs are $7 which includes a physical CD and 192K MP3 files loaded nicely and permanently into your locker.

- One poster complained you can't download the MP3 file without installing an application. That's inaccurate. You can download all the tracks individually directly from the locker - no application install required. Just click on the triangle in the flash UI and select "download".

- We do provide several different applications for your convenience all of which work on Linux as well as the other PC OSes. There's an Album Downloader which will with one click download any new purchases and load into iTunes or your fave media player. There's also Locker Sync 3.0 which will sync your entire music library from locker to PC. So lots of different options.

- Slashdotters might be interested in our API (see: http://mp3tunes.com/api). My vision is all your music goes into your personal locker and then with a click can be streamed or synced to ANY device in the world. It's a very open view of the world and of your media. We have 100,000 lockers and a great list of devices coming by this holiday season all of which talk directly to a locker. We're even having a contest to spur developers for $10,000 to come up with new music devices/interfaces: See http://mp3tunes.com/contest

-- MR

Mp3.com was probably one of the best music sites around at the time for unsigned or self promoting artists. In fact to this day I've seen nothing nearly as good or diverse. The music scandal was the online storage they where trying to offer, which I didn't pay much attention to because I was there for the new music. AFAIR they where supposed to be allowing you "storage" for your existing CD's. I don't now how it worked or if there was any verification method but I don't honestly think it's such a bad idea. Now he has a product called MP3tunes that shares the same goal. Online storage/backup/accessibility of your music collection. But now you have to upload the individual tracks (using the Oboe program to sync). It's good and I use it, but it's a lot of time and bandwidth uploading tracks that are often going to be exact duplicates of files already on their system so I can see how his original idea could have seemed appealing (to both the end-user, their ISP and the service).

But I do miss the days of surfing Mp3.com for new music and the artists I met and discovered there. It was a pretty good music community. Nothing like MySpace or anything else out there today.

For music at least I'd definitely go with mp3tunes. Their pricing model is much more consumer friendly (starting at free) and the service is purpose built. For general purpose storage, if I wanted or needed it I don't think I could justify paying that kind of price. Even though I'm sure their reliability is best of breed (which I know needs to be figured into the total cost, but 100GB these days is nothing).

I'm an Emusic subscriber and love them, but there are LOTS of legal services out there, these days, selling good ol' MP3s (or even FLAC/OGG) with no DRM

• audiolunchbox.com
• mp3tunes.com
• Many record labels like Magnatune and Bleep
• and the somewhat-legal allofmp3.com for the major-label stuff.

We keep a full list of them at cdbaby.net/dd-partners (in 10 languages!). Though that list is meant mainly for our musician clients, it's a good permalink for a constantly-updating list of digital music sellers, with a short description of each.

The solution is that someone needs to make a music store in a non-DRM format (MP3 or OGG).

Besides the well-known Russian music store of questionable legality, there's the MP3Tunes Store. How does that one not count?

Unfortunately, again, record companies require draconian DRM methods on any files "officially" distributed on the internet.

You meant that Sony BMG, Universal, Warner, and EMI require such draconian digital restrictions. Other labels do exist.

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

They are reverse engineering iTunes. I'd be willing to bet on it.

Pshaw! Why should they bother going after iTunes when can just create their own innovative and original products like Lsongs and MP3tunes?

For something more legally and ethically unambiguous there is also MP3tunes and eMusic, though they both have limited selections of generally independent music. Strangely enough mp3.com doesn't seem to have mp3s on it anymore. There's also some labels like Magnatune that distribute mp3s.

A hundred and seventyfive dollars?!? The greedy BASTARDS!!

Huh? Millions? Oh, never mind then.

In any case, MP3Tunes.com was started by the same guy that founded the original mp3.com, who is also the owner of Linpro.

Mindawn doesn't have an MS PlaysForSure certification either: they couldn't because they don't support MS WMA. Purchased songs are non-DRMed, so they probably wouldn't have had any problems if they also did the transcoding into MP3 and AAC for their iPod customers beforehand.

I think a deal with mp3tunes.com might have been better. While their selection is non-DRMed audio by little known arists as well, the songs are in a format, MP3, that is most widely supported by portable digital audio players, and no additional clunky software is required besides your web browser for obtaining these songs. I guess the tradeoff when choosing between the two services is support for Debian or a wider range of portable players.

At this point the traditional CD buying system seems to be the best option since it offers the widest selection, plus the payment scheme for most customers isn't a mysterious unknown as Mindawn's.

BadApple Plug-in for iTunes Podcasts

At some point, Apple is going to add explicit support for podcasts to iTunes. Podcasts are really only long, often dull sound files, the 21st century equivalent of talk radio on cassette. Still, it's a fad, and since iTunes lets you look you for streaming broadcasts, why not podcasts, too? At least, so think the anonymous folks behind BadFruit, an outfit that just released the BadApple iTunes plug-in, ironically for the Windows version of iTunes only. The plug-in adds another link, called Podcasts, to the main iTunes window. Click on the link and you get a list of podcast categories. Drill down to download specific podcasts in iTunes and use them as you would any other iTunes sound file. BadApple claims to be pre-emptive insurance against any potential limitations Apple may place on the podcasts it may offer in future versions of iTunes. CNET speculates that MP3.com founder Michael Robertson, who now has a new site called MP3Tunes.com, is the anonymous author of BadFruit.
BadFruit: http://www.badfruit.com/
CNET: http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-5754227.html
MP3Tunes.com: http://www.mp3tunes.com/

Actually it is called MP3tunes.com

"Stop suing your customers."

The paid download market is exploding. Sales are up something like 10X this year over last. The record companies probably think that a carrot and stick method is best. As long as the online music market continues to be wildly successful, it will be tough to dissuade them from continuing to take legal action.

"Stop forcing DRM on customers."

The other side of the coin is that while DRM-laden stores like the iTMS are doing amazing business, the sites that specialize in legal, DRM-free music are just having trouble getting an audience -- or content. We can sit here and say that what the customer really wants is to buy music from Magnatunes or MP3Tunes, but the fact is that they're not doing one hundred of one percent of the iTMS' business. Consumer acceptance of DRM is probably not seen as a big deal by the record companies, given these numbers.

"Sell cheaper, and make up the difference on volume. More people would buy an album for $7.99 than they would at $21.99."

Agreed. And, so do the record companies -- they're way ahead of us. FWIW, I know that $7.99 and $21.99 are just two imaginary numbers you pulled out for the purpose of making a point, but we can't expect $7.99 prices any time soon. Despite the cries of the "I buy CD-Rs for $0.25 so a record company could make money selling CDs at $5.00" geniuses, the realities of the costs of a two-tier distribution system and the expenses of producing CDs won't let that happen.

"Those are the facts. It's a shame the RIAA (and the Canuck equivilent) won't accept them."

This is one of those pot/kettle/black situations -- and I'm not referring specifically to you, but to Slashdotters in general. As I covered above, the phenomenal success of online music resellers like iTMS/Rhapsody/Napster demonstrates that the "add DRM / sue your customers" method is working just fine. We can say that perhaps if Apple hadn't added DRM, or if the record labels hadn't litigated, the online music industry might have grown 1,500% year over year rather than merely 1,000%, but I don't buy that -- particularly in light of the relative failure of the DRM-free MP3 stores.

"Unless you have the artist's permission, I think it's clear that it's wrong. The fact that the music industry is engaged in a greater wrong is not even that much of a mitigating factor. It's up to the artist to choose to involve themselves in civil disobedience against the label system, to accept the consequences of sharing their songs on P2P, whether good or bad. It's not up to you to make that decision for them."

Very well put. To elaborate further, I think he was implicitly asking his students to look inward and ask themselves:

1. Are there times when two wrongs do make a right?
2. Is the golden rule (that is... treat others how you would like to be treated) subjective? If somebody that you don't know would rather that you not violate their rights, does it apply? Does what they do for a living, or how much money they make have an effect on your decision? In other words, was Orwell on to something when his characters in Animal Farm wrote "some are more equal than others?"
3. If somebody makes what you perceive to be an incorrect choice (here, choosing to sign a recording contract rather than giving your work away for free) does this change the way you feel about respecting their rights?
4. Can it be considered "greedy" to download music for free as an alternative to paying for it? Likewise, can it be considered "greedy" to choose to sign a record contract, rather than making your work available for free?
5. The masses have the power and the leverage here. Ultimately there's nothing you can do if somebody wants to violate your rights, so ultimately, all musicians have to truly rely on is the honor system. Do you agree that "might makes right?" How would you answer if you were (a) a high school student who can't afford to buy all the music they want, (b) a musician who relies on royalty payments to pay the rent, (c) an American Indian living during the westward expansion of the 19th century?

"If you don't like the label system, it's far more moral and effective to promote sites like 3hive that hilight independant artists, many of whom are more than happy to let you download complete songs (not just 30 second samples) if there's a chance that'll convince you to buy their CDs. And, heck, it even works."

Agreed. There's also MP3Tunes (you have to pay, but it's high-quality, non-DRM stuff) and Magnatunes (which I believe is payment optional). Plenty of ways to get high quality, low-cost (or free) music from musicians who haven't gone the major label route.

The recording industry ARE a bunch of greedy bastards that are just in it for the money, so any place they can squeeze out a few more bucks, they'll do it. And they know the power of Intellectual Property © ® and all the fists full of money that can generate, so they do everything they can to extend and expand copyright, so they can retain monopoly rights on something they paid someone to create but somehow they own.

But the real question is how can you make it. Well, to make it on-line as a musician, this is what I would do:

• Make sure your website has features to keep and gain fan attention. Make sure you have available media such as:
  • MP3s, WMAs, OGGs, and AACs of your music in lower but still acceptable quality. I'd say 56k-96kbit, so casual listeners can listen but true fans would want to purchase high quality (192-512k) copies and lossless copies. Doesn't even have to be all your music. Imagine it like singles played on the radio. You can even have a tip section for each song so they can donate if they feel like it. And since you're distributing these files, you could have an introduction where you thank them for listening and direct them to your website, and put meta-data tags (ID3 tags and OGG comments, and I'm sure WMA and AAC have similar info blocks) on the files so it shows your information in iTunes, Winamp, Windows Media Player, XMMS, and so on.
  • Maybe setup a Shoutcast, or IceCast channel. "All $MYBAND! All the time!"
  • Videos of the band. Again, low quality, Windows Media, Quicktime, screw Real Player. Make them stream-only for free and offer to sell downloads of higher quality copies.
  • Sell swag from your website. Audio CDs, DVDs of shows you've played, music videos if you're inclined to make them; T-shirts, hoodies, baby-doll shirts and all that crap that Cafepress will make for you. Turn album covers into desktop wallpapers, and have band photos for download. Make cell phone themes and ring-tones, sell those for $0.99 or even $0.50. Find a local starving-artist to help with the media if you want.
  • If you've got the time and energy, have a band blog, podcast, or even for have those for individual band members.
  • Promote your site with other artists and promote them on yours if you like them or if you think your fans would like them. A couple of banner ads on your site (provided that they're not obnoxious) in return for a couple banner ads on someone else's site.
• Get signed with whoever you can, but make sure you retain copyrights and possibly distribution rights. Get your music on iTMS if you can. Look into on-line record companies/distributors like Magnatune or MP3 Tunes as long as they won't interfere with you hosting your music on your own if you want.

Make it easy for interested fans to find you, refer you to their friends, buy stuff from you. Make your website easy to find and accessible. If you're not so good with visual media or website design, you probably know of a geek or a family member who is good at that, you could have them make a site for you (Payment would be between you and them). Once you're big enough, see if you can setup some tour dates. Sell CDs there, give out business cards with your website URL on them. Give away CDs with a few singles on them. You can even have an introduction on the CDs and DVDs and direct them back to your website, especially on any CDs you give away. Put a data track on audio CDs and DVDs that has some promo material or music files for your band and a link to your website. Remember everything can be used to promote yourself/your band, so make sure you've got it there where you can. But don't be obnoxious about it. People understand self-promo

Another option would be buying from http://mp3tunes.com/, which has "No cumbersome DRM". Yet again, CDs may be the best choice, as nearly all the artists you want sell CDs.

Hate to say it, but people are now realizing what it is like to not own the music you paid for. Apple owns and controls your tunes. This is why DRM is bad. Fortunately some people still believe in DRM-free music http://www.mp3tunes.com/.

Q: What is DRM and why does MP3tunes not use it?
A: DRM is an acronym for "Digital Rights Management," or as we like to refer to it around here at MP3tunes, "Digital Restriction Management." DRM is basically a form of copy protection from the record labels. MP3tunes believes in respecting musicians copyrights, but we also feel that DRM comes with restrictions that make it a less than ideal solution for music fans who legally purchase music. For example, song files encoded with DRM usually limit how many times you can make a copy of a song, even for your own personal use. They often limit how many times you can burn a song to a CD, making it impossible to make several different mixes with some of the same music that you've purchased. Perhaps the biggest problem with DRM, is that it usually locks you into using one particular computer, brand of software and music player.

Q: But if a song is available in the MP3 format, won't people just share it over the Internet without paying?
A: People who want to be dishonest, not respect a musicians copyright, and illegally trade music files over the Internet are ALREADY doing that. Even the best DRM systems are converted to MP3 files withing minutes of the music being released.

Q: So, what's the answer for record labels and artists to protect their music from illegal file sharing?
A: We think the best way to solve this problem, is by simply making it EASY to LEGALLY obtain those same song files, but at a fair price and in a convenient, non-cumbersome file format, such as MP3. We actually believe if everyone had the ability to conveniently purchase music in the popular, friendly MP3 format, THAT would INCREASE music sales. Many people use illegal file sharing, simply because they don't like the hassle and restrictions that they get when they purchase music. If they steal the music, it comes in the convenient MP3 format, and will work on any player. If they legally purchase it, it comes with a pair of handcuffs which restrict how they can use the music. Is it any wonder many HONEST people turn to file sharing sites to get their music?

• Linux Desktop Summit
  
• Linspire
  
• Lsongs
  
• MP3beamer
  
• MP3tunes
  

I've yet to find a online music store that will let me use my mp3 player.

Off the top of my head:
eMusic
MP3Tunes

There are also a number of individual artists and labels that sell ordinary MP3s you can use with your player, as well as a number of places offering free sample tracks.