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Windows XP to Target MP3 Files
blown.penguin writes: "Reuters UK reports that Microsoft and RealNetworks plan to "wean customers way from MP3 files" and "limit the quality" of MP3 files that can be recorded on a computer running Windows XP. You can read all about it here." The entire Wall Street Journal story is here. Read it and weep. Dave Farber (who, incidentally, does understand the issues and isn't making this comment in a "get used to it" sense) has a great quote: "The consumer is going to eat what he's given."
Built in codec in 98 already has mp3 encoding ability thats limited to 56k
WHATS FUCKING NEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
farks sake, FUD FUD from clueless journos and clueless sales/press people that are dumber than an ant.
I noticed a few weeks ago that RealPlayer Basic already restricts encodings to 96kbps. Of course, you can currently use a different encoder or buy the full version.
It's not bad to encourage people to move away from MP3s -- it's definitely not the best encoding technology out there. Of course, forcing people to use RealAudio or Windows Media Audio is not quite kosher..
[Insert OGG Vorbis plug..]
There is a question of legality, considering that Microsoft is again bundling a popular technology with their OS, rather than letting the market forces play out.
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Well, some software that worked on Win9x/Me probably doesn't work properly with XP, considering the mixed heritage with NT/2000. Things just work differently between the two branches, so 9x software might run into trouble.
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Who the hell uses Windows' built-in applications anyway?
- A.P.
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Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Don't forget that just because WMP8 provides the functionality doesn't mean that you have to use it. Even if the provided windows software is there and crappy, doesn't mean that people will never use MP3s again.... why can't they just use third party apps like they always have?
It's hardly an open standard- mp3 has lots of its own problems. But with the incredible hostility towards it, in a way that keeps Fraunhofer from running amok. Balance of power :)
Let's assume that Microsoft gets its way, that it genuinely does have the ability to make a majority of mp3 files 56K or whatever. To some extent this will proliferate WMA, but in addition it will simply proliferate 56K mp3 files: many people really don't seem to care.
So, rather than Napster being full of major label music ripped skippily off CDs and encoded at 128 with Xing, Napster (or its equivalent) will be full of major label music ripped skippily off CDs and encoded at 56K using an intentionally bad encoder- or at 128K with the same intentionally bad encoder, if people learn to change the registry key.
Meanwhile, some of us in the content producing and open source code writing arenas are busily producing content that can be encoded much better (LAME, with special settings to handle 'mastering' to mp3) from CD audio- and even that can be done much better than the industry's overcompressed, intentionally-full-of-errors-for-copy-protection efforts.
While there is still any channel for independent artistic expression- while it is still legal to make your own music and make mp3s of it and put them out there- the playing field is being tilted in two directions at once. It's being tilted legislatively away from indie content producers, and this is the obvious way. But! With all this cynical the-consumer-will-eat-slops-and-love-it thinking from the big corporations, the playing field of quality is being tilted TOWARD indies. I mean, when you can fool around with some synthesisers, maybe a bit of recording equipment, free audio software, and produce music that has audio quality that is _dramatically_ superior to the corporate product, there is something major happening, with major implications for the image of corporate entertainment. And you can- the fact that the big labels, that Microsoft _are_ capable of producing quality output does not mean they're going to, or that they want to. The labels are busy trying to out-loud each other on the increasingly ignored Top 40 radio stations- this is a well known scandal among mastering engineers. They're increasingly turning to cheap production methods like Pro Tools and _ignoring_ their ability to draw on really top of the line studios and talent. And Microsoft? Let me put it this way: "56K WMA built into the OS- 128K and up WMA available over .NET on a pay-per-encode basis!". This isn't 1998. Microsoft are NOT IN A POSITION to reproduce their previous successes with WMA- they have too much of a need to tie it in with .NET and this will get in the way of widespread adoption of it- the jaws of the trap are just too obvious this time, and the 'worse-is-better' alternative, mp3, is just too entrenched.
It's a very good, though very nerve-racking, time to be involved with Free software, with indie music and arts. Rarely in history have our enemies been so powerful, but rarely have they been so sloppy, contemptuous, and full of hubris.
Frankly, it is not time to weep. It is time to kick ass and take no prisoners.
The filesystem layer could detect when an MP3 file is being written by looking at the header. If the quality is too great, then it would interfere with the writing process; e.g. cause the WriteFile() system call to fail. Or it could even put a block of zeros into the file.
:)
Taken a step further, the operating system could require special authentication from the software before it allows a file with an MP3 header to be written at all. The authentication could be produced by requesting the app to produce a hash of a region of its machine code, just like what AOL did with their IM client.
Of course, what would happen is that the music sharing community would come up with a trivial way to disguise the MP3 file when it is stored on Windows. MP3 files will simply have to be ``pickled'' for storage on a Windows system. Decoders would read the pickled format as handily as raw MP3 and life goes on.
Because of the easy way to get around the scheme, I doubt it will be implemented. I suspect that this is may be a case of product management leaking their wishful thinking before checking the feasibility with development.
Whoever at MS thinks Joe User will stick to 56kbp is smoking crack.
I didn't see where it said they'd do that? What it said is that the MP3s are limited to that quality, but other formats aren't. Ergo, people will use the "higher-quality" formats..
Everyone will simply use Winamp or one of the hundreds of other MP3 tools.
Which "coincidentally" broke in the new Windows version, according to the article..
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
But I still fail to see why users will choose something that's more user-hostile when they don't have to.
My father uses some fancy proprietary sound format because he believes it will keep him from accidentally illegally copying files. Make of it what you will.
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
I'd love to know how this is going to be accomplished. Prevent Windows Media Player from playing mp3s / recording over a certain bitrate? Sure. Prevent another mp3 player from doing this? How, exactly?
I don't think they need to; most people will use what they're given, and if the Microsoft Spiffy Audio Format sounds better, they'll use that.
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
It will be interesting to see what happens, but I am not expecting Microsoft to have to squeeze the OEMs too terribly hard. Especially since it is in the OEMs best interests to have Windows XP do well (it requires beefier hardware).
In the end, it will be up to the customers who decide if Windows XP will fly or not. If Microsoft pushes consumers or OEMs towards Windows XP too hard then you can bet that they will only increase the tendency of their customers to look for alternatives.
Microsoft could guarantee OS penetration with pre-loading when PC sales were going like crazy, but that's simply not the case anymore. For example, there are a lot more people using Windows 95 still than Windows ME, and these two OSes are basically compatible with each other. Meaning that it was perfectly safe for the Windows 9X user to purchase a computer with Windows ME on it and expect that his software would still run.
This isn't the case with Windows XP, and it is going to cause Microsoft more than its share of fits. Unless Microsoft discontinues Windows ME completely there are still going to be some people who will prefer it. Especially if it allows them to buy a less expensive computer.
As for developers, my guess is that they will almost certainly continue to develop software that runs on Win 9X. After all, that's where all of the customers are, and Windows XP doesn't really have any "features" that are so compelling that it would cause developers to want to narrow their market to just Windows XP users. Even Microsoft makes sure that new versions of their desktop software runs on Windows 95.
Once again, we'll see. They have got a lot of momentum, and they have the preload market locked up. But times are tight, and Windows XP is just an OS. In many ways it is less desireable to the home and small business user than Windows 9X, and Microsoft's new draconian IP rights technologies are not going to make people happy. A slow quarter for the computer market that was attributed to customer dissatisfaction with Windows XP would send Microsoft back to the drawing board, and it would accelerate "alternatives" like never before.
At the end of the day the old adage "the customer is always right" is the surest way to maintain your customer base, and if Microsoft keeps their antics up they will eventually learn that the hard way. I am not saying that Windows XP will be the crack in the dam that starts the flood of customers away from Windows. Microsoft still has a fairly commanding lead on the desktop, for now. They would have to push the OEMs fairly hard for there to be any chance of an open revolt. But it's only a matter of time if Microsoft doesn't worry more about their customers.
There is nothing wrong with the WMA format, other than the fact that it isn't an open format (you can only get a WMA player from Microsoft or one of their licensees), and that is has content management built in (meaning it will be possible to tie your WMAs to one machine).
Now, if you can't imagine a day when you might want to play your music on a non-Microsoft licensed piece of equipment, and you can't imagine ever wanting to move your files from your present computer to a future one, then you are right, the WMA file format is great.
Yes, I realize that this is paranoid, and probably delusional. But why would Microsoft build this sort of stuff into the format if they weren't planning on turning the features on eventually.
Fortunately, we can just as easily use the Ogg Vorbis format, which is also very good, and get most of the benefits of WMA without all of the hassles (and potential hassles). It's patent free, it's licensed under a BSD style license, and it is supported in all of the more popular players (including some upcoming hardware based players). My guess is that WMA will soon be the medium of choice for the music industry, and Ogg Vorbis will be the medium of choice for everyone else.
Good enough and less expensive always wins.
That's why I think that Windows XP is doomed unless Windows ME is taken off of the market.
The same could easily be said for Windows XP. Believe it or not Microsoft has got to sell Windows XP. If Windows XP is chuck full of stupid "features" that are actually disincentives to the upgrade then people will stick with what they have. This is nearly as dangerous for Microsoft as if the user had switched to Linux. Remember, Microsoft's biggest competitor isn't Corel, or Oracle, or IBM, or even the amorphous "Linux," Micrsoft's biggest competitor is previous versions of their own software.
Even worse issues like games and compatibility with work also make it more likely that people will stick with what they have. I don't know of any businesses that have rolled out Windows XP (nor do I know of any that have done a serious desktop rollout of Windows 2000, for that matter). They should be making their operating system as attractive to buyers as they possibly can. Instead they are lining up an initiative to treat their customers as copyright breaking thieves. Things like WMA and the new copy protection scheme aren't likely to entire current Windows users to this new OS.
Meanwhile Linux will continue to grow. naysayers have been predicting its imminent demise since it's first arrival on the scene, and they have always been spectacularly wrong. The reason for this is simple, Linux is too darned useful. It's price tag is a siren song for hackers and entrepreneurs everywhere, and the cost of maintaining the infrastructure that keeps Linux alive is negligible. Microsoft can't bankrupt Linux, it can't buy Linux, and it can't intimidate enough Linuxers to make a difference.
This doesn't make Linux better than Windows. I personally don't think that Linux is ready for the desktop, for example. But it does guarantee that Linux will keep growing, and that it will continue to become a more viable alternative every day. If Microsoft continues to misuse their customers they will someday find that most of them are jumping ship.
Firstly, most users don't use Linux; their applications and the boundaries of their comfort zone (they're not hardcore hackers or open-source zealots, remember, but ordinary people who don't care about computers as long as they do the job) keep them bound to Windows; therefore, it would be far easier for them to switch to WMA.
Secondly, the goal of this is to encourage those producing content (i.e., unsigned bands, musicians, &c) to use WMA instead of MP3. If MP3 can only be heard by those savvy and picky enough to download WinAmp and WMA works out of the box, guess which they'll post on their web site?
Mind you, this seems to be, from the article, just about the audio encoding feature of MS's standard software. It will play MP3s at full rate (for the time being; though auto-degrading them in the name of defending copyright may be on the board), and you can create MP3s with other software (and presumably those who actually publish content will obtain such software).
If J. Random Newbie wants to use a proprietary Microsoft format for storing their ripped CDs on their home PC, it doesn't really affect MP3. Though in a few years time, a generation of users will associate audio with WMA, and MP3 being as obscure as Type 1 fonts on a PC, support for MP3 may be dropped across the board.
Copy control may be exactly why Linux on the desktop can only decline.
To whit: consumers will demand that their machines play media. Media producers (Hollywood, the Recording Racket, &c.) will not sanction any formats that's not locked down to the hilt. It is impossible to make a "trusted client" player on any system where the filthy thieving user can recompile the kernel to capture audio (oops, there goes your Secure Audio Path!) or bypass anti-debugging protection and pull encryption keys out of memory images.
If consumer Linux succeeds, it will be on sealed devices where the user cannot replace the kernel without voiding the warranty (and probably committing a felony under the DMCA).
Most people (who aren't information-wants-to-be-free radicals) don't care about formats, as long as the magic box works when they push the button. Less support for one file format when there are others provided (such as Windows Media) won't make them make the effort to download the extra software.
As for MP3 support, other companies may drop it as well. Do you think AOL Time Warner will zealously defend WinAMP's playback of uncontrolled MP3s, or (at the behest of their music division) drop it as soon as WMA becomes the dominant format, perhaps even encouraging users to migrate?
Most people (outside of here) use only Windows on the desktop. Non-Microsoft platforms are irrelevant from a numbers perspective.
By supporting non-MS media formats, a media producer would get as much extra market share as by translating into Esperanto.
By that argument, blocking the distribution of open-source DVD decoders is also restraint of trade, and is clearly not allowed. Though that's not what the courts said.
If Microsoft frame their restrictions on CD ripping (i.e., requiring ripping applications to be signed, and signing only those which strictly enforce copy control, or even only their own) as a measure to prevent piracy of recordings, they will most probably get away with it.
How do you participate in your culture then? By vegetating in front of your television, remote in hand? By sending feedback tto its creators through buying products advertised on the shows? Can you actually interact with it, or are you stuck just passively consuming it like tube-fed nutrients?
This is not being elitist; there is culture at all levels, though you're more likely to find it in the streets around your home than in the committee-scripted, machine-made TV shows beamed down from on on high.
The mass media is not culture. Culture is not something made by the beautiful freaks of Hollywood and an army of marketroids and handed down from the megacorps to the hungry, bored consumer masses below; culture is something people create and interact and participate in. And buying consumer goods product-placed in TV shows doesn't count as participation in culture.
If you want to see culture, go to a band venue and see some live bands, or to an art exhibition, or read a book. But if you don't make the effort to participate, it is not culture. Purchased experiences don't count.
There is little difference between a sedentary, passive couch potato and the most benighted barbarian; in fact, it is arguable that most "primitive" societies, with their rituals and oral traditions, have infinitely more culture per capita than contemporary Western consumerist society.
Ogg Vorbis for OS/2
The only reason that MP3s are used more is because they are the standard now and since there are so much more of them out there compared to WMA, they will remain as the prime music format...until some radically different format comes out
Actually, mp3 is used more than wma because mp3 is an OPEN standard. It is supported on just about EVERY platform out there (win, mac, *nix, BSD, Be, etc...). It's good...it's small...it's easy...it's well-supported...it's portable...and it works.
In order for ANY format to "replace" mp3 as a "de facto" standard, it will have to match or beat mp3 on all of these points. wma doesn't do that. I'ts only supported on platforms MS sees fit to support it on. It's not portable - with all the copy-protection crap. Yes, it may compress better while still retaining sound quality - but compression isn't everything.
...ahem..."Cartman". One word.
CuteRip works just fine.
Andrew van der Stock
Windows Xp is targeted first and foremost as a consumer OS. It will be replacing Win Me, which in my personal opinion is excellent. No more DOS! No more instability.
Anyway, Win2K has not been, and is not a flop. Most of the places I'm working at now are getting ready to deploy it as SP1 is out, SP2 is on the way, and more large sites have done the guinea pig bit for them, so they, too, can be lemmings.
However, I do agree with you, there are certain business practices that Microsoft needs to stop and consider before doing or else this will be point historians will point at, and say "Microsoft's decline started in 2001, when customers balked at..." Microsoft is completely customer driven, and if the customers do not come across, then they are stuffed.
Andrew van der Stock
I say never let facts get in the way of a good Microsoft bashing article on /. For the very, very few of you using beta 2, the following registry key is of interest.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlaye r\ Settings\MP3Encoding]
"LowRate"=dword:0001f400
Just change it. The above will change it 128k (from 56k). The UI shows this and reflects it.
Also Media Player 8 will allow you to encode .wma files without setting the license keys. I'm not sure that this will make it to the final release, or even WMP9, but ...
Andrew van der Stock
/. ... Microsoft ... FUD... where to begin? Let's start with some facts from a beta tester.
In beta 2, the supplied MP3 encoder gets its Low Rate setting from the registry. This is set at the factory to 56k. You can go into the registry and change 56k to 128k or whatever. And it works, but 64k .wma files sound better than 128k mp3 files, and use less than half the space. And, so far, you can continue to turn off licensing your .wma files.
There are no NTFS or other deliberate data corruption ploys. I have existing MP3 files that play just fine in WMP and in WinAmp (which also continues to work).
CuteRip, my favorite ripper before WMP, continues to work, and continues to encode at whatever setting I set it to. WMP 8 plays these files just fine. But compared to WMP8, CuteRip is feature poor and slow. WMP8 not only goes and grabs the titles without paying for it, it retrieves album art work and orders it properly for you in your media library. As soon as you start ripping in WMP8, it starts playing the encoded files, and it encodes both .wma or .mp3 on my PIII/700 laptop about 3x real time. It's flawless. There seems to be no penalty for playing whilst ripping. It has digital and analog error correction if your CDs have a few scratches like mine do.
Microsoft may or may not ship a MP3 encoder with WMP 8, but it is in beta 2. Microsoft may or may not ship WMP 8 with the ability to turn off licensing .wma files, but it is in beta 2.
Sorry for the barrage of facts. I'm now returing you to your regularly scheduled fact-free Microsoft bash.
Andrew van der Stock
WinXP will be leased, not bought. It will contact a server at Microsoft headquarters every n days to confirm whether it needs "system updates" or not. And if your net connection is down for more than k days, your system will refuse to run, so don't think you can just pull the ethernet jack and use a (crippled) system.
If a program to use your .FMS extension ever gets more than 1,000 users, Microsoft will patch the operating system to exclude it, and within a few days your workaround will stop working.
This will happen back and forth a few times until 99% of the userbase gets thoroughly sick of it and uses whatever format Microsoft makes it easy to use. Ease-of-use, slow and steady, wins the race.
Don't think Microsoft will zap out your program from Redmond? Think DirecTV. They own the operating system from boot to shutdown. No matter how clever you are, they will take your program down remotely.
That's the short-term fix. In the long-term, 5 to 10 years, you will find that Microsoft and the hardware manufacturers will team up to create an audio standard which requires you to know a secret key to put data to your computer's speakers. If you don't apply to Microsoft for a special license, your program will be unable to make noise -- without going through Microsoft's API, of course, which will make only noises guaranteed not to infringe copyright, like boops, beeps, or files stored in whatever format Microsoft makes it easy to use.
Enterprising hackers will of course find and steal secret keys, so that they can release freeware MP3 players that run on Windows. But again, as soon as these programs get popular enough to show up on Microsoft's radar, the operating system will download the new patches which specifically forbid these programs from working.
Try to understand. Microsoft's eventual plan is that you will not own your computer anymore. They will own your computer, and lease its use to you on very specific licensing terms. Their long-term goal is that people who try to use their computers like Turing machines, thinking they can make them do anything they want, will go to jail.
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg
Okay... i like how the article says that MP3 is the only format that napster distributes (let's assume for a minute NAPSTER is the one doing it). So... um. How long do they think it will take before napster scans your drive for other formats? Seriously. Are people this blinded by the word technology? They think that there is some magical technological force at work here? Napster just shares files. People will use other programs to play MP3s other than Media Player and Real. What a concept. "Hey this sounds better with WinAmp, I'll use that." Wow, technology==magic.
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Well, I have had a chance to see the new windows "Whislter" (or whatever its named) the other day, well to say the least I wasn't impressed. It reminds me of the win95 to 98 upgrade...take 95 and add some new graphics, and they were done. It took a second edition of win98 to make it almost bearable. The new windows is a w2k makover, the start button pulls up the integrated ms web page. Although you can set it to work like normal, this looks to be the moron's version of windows, designed for the webtv owner.
As for integrated software, I have toyed with win ME. The media player is not that great, and why in the world would you use that when there is quite a few quality mp3 player/rippers out there. Musicmatch jukebox is my favorite right now, and it can rip cd's with the best of them.
As for replacing mp3, well that will not really happen on the local computer. Where it will happen is the paid for downloads that will soon become available. That is where real and ms will get thier hooks into the people. They won't be able to leagaly stop windows users from playing mp3's or stop programs from doing it properly either, but they can start replacing the leagally downloadable version.
If ignorance is bliss, the world is full of blissful people
Honestly, I don't think ms is really concerned with us. The target victim is the moron who really doens't understand any of this. They buy a computer with windows pre-installed and use whats there. They dont even realize they can dload something better. Now they decided to rip a cd, big step for them, and the windows format sounds better. To your average moron they think ms is wonderful because they make the music sound better than mp3. Although this isnt true, they don't realize this and to them its true.
Also all the buy it online music will start changing to this format, and for the moron it just confirms thier conviction ms format is better.
Try as we might its the moron that lets these things get out of hand. Due to lack of knowledge...or desire to get the knowledge, they accept what is handed to them regardless that it smells like crap. They just don't care.
If ignorance is bliss, the world is full of blissful people
It's here already. It's called Secure Audio Path. Windows ME can do it, and XP will ship with it built in. See this, among other items.
The idea is that with compliant audio hardware--presumably all audio hardware within a year or two--an encrypted stream will be handed to "smart" audio hardware. If it's a secured media format, it needs to be decrypted, upon authorization, by the hardware. If it's unencrypted, it will only play if it's not watermarked. Similar work has been done on video hardware that would refuse to display cracked, watermarked video streams.
Even if you have Linux drivers for this hardware, and even if you can get to your BIOS settings, which Microsoft now demands be undocumented onscreen as a condition to granting hardware certification, and somehow manage to install Linux on this new hardware, the audio hardware is doing rights management for you.
Air supply thus cut off. Checkmate.
What, exactly, is the value for me the consumer in buying this POS operating system anyway?
My apps won't work, the interface is dumbed down and therefore aggravating, backwards compatibility is questionable, and let's not forget the damn thing won't even be servicable for two more service packs!
What? What the fsck is the POINT?
Honestly, I'm glad I've been looking into Linux, because I'm going to FORCED onto Linux!
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
I know this isn't going to stop 3rd party developers from providing solutions but with 90% of the computing population willing to take whatever is handed to them Pre-Installed, this could corrupt MP3's usefullness as a sharing technology.
IMHO
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
If Microsoft wasn't a monopoly ( even in the eyes of the US courts ) which used that power to prevent products from getting to the PC users then your argument is acceptable. But that is NOT the case. I like the fact that some very nice software is free but what Microsoft did to Netscape and many others is BAD for the industry and bad for users. The fact that there is a operating system, which is free, has nothing to do with what Microsoft is doing with MP3's on pre-installed software and has everything to do with what Microsoft has done in the past to prevent competition in a open market. What Microsoft does is not within the framework of the laws governing capitalism....
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I wonder if the customers asked for Microsoft to downgrade the quality of MP3 recording capabilities? I wonder if customers asked for a non-standard Java implementation? I wonder if customers asked for a booting systems which makes it really hard to boot other OS's?
This is another Microsoft Embrace/Extend/Extinguish tacktic which gives them the right to dictate the contend on CUSTOMERS computers. What's next html, XML, smtp, or any open standard? Would Quicktime, Real, or other proprietary technology also get downgraded by Microsoft Pre-Installed applications?
I think THAT is why people are upset about this. IMHO.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
On Linux:
.ogg files and have them converted to CDA files. Yet.
Ripper: Grip
Player: Xmms (with plugin)
On Windows:
Ripper: CD-Ex (untested)
Player: Sonique, WinAmp(with Plugin)
What's the next excuse?
Oh, I've got one: MP3CD Players occasionally play WMAs and never play Ogg files. Yeah, and you can't DnD
Ogg Vorbis is a great format. I wish it luck.
Does anyone not remember that Windows NEVER came with a high quality MP3 codec? They had a rather restricted codec (56kbps, I believe) which was licensed from FhG included with Media Player 7 (I believe). Big deal... Just install your licensed codec and things are back to normal. I highly doubt that anyone at Microsoft would be ignorant enough to limit the types of codecs which can be installed, as this would eliminate the possiblity that XP be used for Audio / Video production.
-Steve
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
I find it amusing that they are trying what history has shown has always failed: Balkanization. It didn't work for Metternick and it won't work for Gates.
They are still attempting to lock-in their user base.
If that had worked we'd all still be using the length of the king's thumb (le pouce) to measure lengths of cloth, using different sized wax cylinders to make recordings and forget about power utilities: AC vs. DC and a bazillion different voltages would insure that there was no such thing as an electronic industry.
There is a thriving film and camera industry because T.A. Edison held his thumb and fore-finger 35 milimeters apart when asked how big film should be and everybody made that a standard and followed it.
That's not to say that there aren't other film formats: 120mm, 70mm, 140mm.
But 35mm and the SLR hand-held are overwhelmingly accepted for a host of uss because the form fits humans and that's all there is to it.
MP3s being denied to consumers because its inconvenient for M$. Please, that approach's about as smart as left-handed monkey wrenches.
MP3 is not the ultimate format, but, like T.A.E. finger-width, its a good base, until some plutocrat decides to try to deprive consumers of what they want.
Now is there any doubt left that Bill Gates and the other playground bullies just want your money and don't give a crap about you and would leave your broken bodies by the side of the road as they walk away with your wallet from the scene of the crime?
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
What is happening, and what will continue to happen, is that the corporate interests will come together to limit the consumer's IP rights not through legislation (though they are trying that route very successfully as well) but through the coercive force of product lines. By making it very inconvinient for the average consumer (and face it folks, /. readers aren't average consumers of computer gear!) to excercise their rights under current copyright law, the manufacturers can errode those rights.
If you can't make a recording for fair use without hacking hardware and software, then you won't be making that recording, if you are the average consumer. And after a few years of virtually no-one excercising their rights to fair-use, the notion that those rights exist will slowly be eroded and THEN it will be far easier to pass legislation outright stripping those rights from the public.
The problem with this, and similar stories, is that no effective public information campaign will be fought against it. Anyone who stands up and yells "foul" will be shot down as either an evil napster-esque hacker/cracker or an anti-Microsoft bigot. In either case you will be considered safe to ignore by the average consumer - adn the result will be that teh sheople will do what the corporations want them to do.
The only real way to counter this trend is to get congress to pass legislation that mandates that any consumer recording/playback device include the ability for people to excercise their fair use rights on all media forms that are handled in recording/playback -- either in the product or in an optional add-on. This will stop the trend of making products that are "broken" with regards to fair-use by design. Unfortunately, it will have the side-effect of increasing cost of consumer goods, as the corporate entities will use that sort of law as an excuse to raise prices.
Of course, such a law will never happen, congress is far to beholden to the big corporations to ever do anything to actually protect the people from bad corporate policies. So those of us who are clued can watch in frustration as our ability to excercise our first amendment rights are slowly and meticulously stripped from us by the refusal of corporations to provide the consumers the means to excercise those rights. But we'll all be happy 'cuase we'll have such nice cheap products to entertain us!
Most folks out there don't know how to rip MP3s. They either need to get help from a friend, or they need apps bundled with Windows. Otherwise they're just left wondering "what is a ripper?" For them, shit vs. cake is going to be a question of crippled MP3 or full-quality WMA. With the scales so tipped, MP3 is not the cake!
So, they'll limit the quality of what can be recorded on a WinXP machine. But they're not talking about limiting the quality of what can be played on a WinXP machine, or, indeed, any OS.
So, those who are recording MP3's simply don't use Windows XP to do it. Use Windows 98. Use a Mac (which, in its current TV ads, is encouraging people to record music CD's). Use Linux/Solaris/whatever.
I really don't think that this is going to have a big effect on music piracy here -- I think it will let Microsoft say they tried.
Dejaffa
There is no 'i' in team, but there is in fiasco...
All the more reason to agressively push for the adoption and penetration of Ogg Vorbis.
By know, everyone in the know should have checked out the Xiphophorus company homepage, and taken a look at Ogg and Vorbis.
If we can create a Napster-like groundswell for an open audio codec such as Vorbis, then it will not matter if Windows XP ships with only Windows Media Audio and the Windows Media Player. The fact is, while WMA is good, it isn't open or free, and and the Windows player isn't as strong as WinAmp or XMMS.
Free is good. That is why Napster did so well. If the downloadable audio market is saturated by ".ogg" files and flooded with high quality and free audio players, then Ogg Vorbis has a chance of beating those nasty little ".wma"'s.
So you're trying to tell everyone that WindowsXP won't play WAV or CDA files anymore? Yeah good fucking logic you've got there. THe majority of audio formats around right now have zero copyright protection as most of them started out for use in sound sampler software. If you're so fucking concerned don't use WindowsXP and stop bitching about it. You're acting like Microsoft is somehow expected to write an operating system for the people by the people, they write an OS to make fucking money and can impliment anything they want into the OS in order to make money. It's called capitalism.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Well unfortunately for you Microsoft writes their fucking operating system. They can do whatever they damn fucking please with their software. How come the double standard? Linux zealots cream their pants howling about Microsoft's lack of interoperability yet run either GNOME or KDE? What the FUCK is your fucking problem. Microsoft writes their OS to their specifications as does anyone else who writes software. In this little concept the world calls capitalism, you sell things. Often times you only sell things because your product has scant few extra features than your competition. No one bitches at Ford because their cars won't accept Mopar parts do they?
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Fuck Netscape, if they can't figure out how to get their product in front of users they DESERVE to go out of business. Shit dude, when Microsoft started packaging IE with Windows people spent the time to download Netscape. That was of course until Netscape decided a quality product was not something they would ship. Users want working software and IE worked when Netscape didn't. What Microsoft does is the same thing every other fucking successful company does. Where do you fucking people get these ideas thato ne corporate entitity is in any way more wholesome than another? Just because AMD is the underdog in the processor market doesn't make them a better corporation. IBM did the same shit Microsoft does now for YEARS and no one really gave a shit. My Ford analogy works just fucking fine because Ford has a monopoly on their niche of the market. I want to use Mopar parts in a mustang god dammit but Ford won't let me. I think I'm going to sue them! You fucking idiots.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Compressed and uncompressed media alike are both run through audio out drivers (either direct WAV out or DirectSound). There's nothing in DirectSound output that prohibits the playing of compressed media. As long as I don't use Microsoft's decoder in WindowsXP it doesn't give a flying fuck what music I'm playing.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
How prophetic - in fact, Fraunhoefer is already starting to charge creators of encoders. Just because they haven't totally cracked down on it yet doesn't mean that they won't do so in the future, just like Unisys did with GIFs.
I agree that fragmentation is bad, but I don't see any alternatives at this point. I guess we'll see if using a free format is important enough to people for them to pass up any compression improvements from WMA. I'm not holding out a lot of hope for the non-/. crowd, though.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Tesco are the UK's biggest supermarket, you know... :-)
Cheers,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
- "Microsoft, for example, plans to severely limit the quality of music that can be recorded as an MP3 file using software built into the next version of its personal-computer operating system, Windows XP, according to the report.""Under Microsoft's new restrictions -- which prevent its built-in software from recording MP3 files at fidelity rates higher than 56 kilobits per second -- MP3 music "sounds like somebody in a phone booth underwater," says P.J. McNealy, an analyst who researches Internet audio issues for Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Conn. (Existing versions of Microsoft's audio software don't allow consumers to record music as MP3 files of any quality.)"
This part sounds like an easy thing to overcome. The problem is...- "if MS somehow disabled or crippled the ability of other MP3 encoders to work under XP."
This sounds more like Microsoft's past practices. (1) Microsoft has in the past, for the benefit of its customers, crippled their OS in ways the caused odd failures with their windows product line. Those targeted were DR DOS, Novell DOS, and Borland, to name a few. (2) With Microsoft's current mode of updating, they do not need to ship a crippled XP, they can progressively over time reduce the ability of other MP3 encoders functionality. This would be done as part of their BUG fixes. Try to name a MS patch which has not broken something new. This set of patches will just happen to have a target.In a place beyond time and space, in a land far better than this, look for me there...
It seems like Microsoft, not the customer is the one trying to slip out of a license :).
I've never used MS products to record or play MP3's, so I could care less about MS's lack of support.
Compare all of this to Apple, who just released the best MP3 encoder/ripper/song manager/cd burner program I've ever used, iTunes. Oh yeah, Apple makes their product free to everyone, too. With OSX running both MS Office, apple apps and all of my favorite unix tools, why would I upgrade to Win XP instead of throwing out my PC and getting a G4? Maybe even a Titanium G4 with a GeForce3... :)
-m
This is sensationalized, like everything else lately.
MS Said that 'Media player will not record mp3's at above 56kbps, because MS does not want to pay royalties to Fraunhoffer/whoever...'
They also mentioned that 'Current recording software seems buggy under WinXP... of *course* it does, with MS changing api's and shit. LOTS of stuff is buggy. Wait for it to finish, and for software to catch up.
This is no big deal; it just means MS isn't putting it's corporate support behind mp3, and will instead try to push their own medium (they did all along; they just put mp3 support in so people woudl hopefully stop using winamp, because winamp could have taken over the media player market... look how MS came out with skins as well). MS hates to lose any sort of mindshare, even on their little built-in utilities.
This is not a conspiracy to sabotage the OS into refusing to play mp3... or refusing to record it.
This is reporters just sensationalizing over nothing, just like the Linus -vs- OS-X fiasco.
Microsoft has limited the bitrate at which Windows' built-in recorder will record MP3s (who uses this anyway?).
Also, there are compatibility issues with some of the other 3rd party rippers right now (no word on which), but very likely these aren't by design, and will be worked around before long.
Any word on Ogg functionality on XP?
Well, not exactly altering the conversion process, they will simply make other encoders crash, so you will be forced to use their encoder, which does exactly what it advertises to do to your content so smile :)
Consumers CLEARLY want Mp3. They have invested hundreds and thousands of dollars in MP3 players, for home, office, car, and to stick in their pockets. They have lots of skins and plugins for PC-based players, and hundreds or thousands of files.
And Microsoft comes along and decides that consumers dont really want MP3; instead, they will want whatever MS decides.
Can anyone else see how twisted and fucked up that is? IT runs completely counter to the idea of a market - consumer demand isn't driving the market with Microsoft at the helm. Rather, corporate greed is.
Frankly, I'm not not surprised something like this happened. MS wants to control our digital media, and this is one way to do it. I just hope something comes along to displace this sad announcement.
I thought that was just a system of cooperative poor-man's sonar primarily used in a recreational aquatic environment. You mean I gotta pay to play?
...Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Rick
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Nah, it won't be a flop. Why? Because it will come pre-installed on every PC sold. Maybe people won't go out and buy an upgrade to it, but the next PC they buy *will* have it on it for sure.
Yesterday's interview with Mr. Young. People don't want to run an operating system. They want applications. Keep it up M$. Linux, BSD, et.al. continues to grow daily.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
It makes sense not to pay the fee and promote a technology you own to avoid having to pay ever again.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
This is obvious bait, Michael, so I'll take it. A statement, such as the one above, is exactly the kind of thing you'd expect from a monopoly. The customer is going to have to settle with whatever we want? What kind of business practice is that in a normal market?
The correct answer, Microsoft, is that the consumer will get whatever he demands. This, and the active registration, is further proof that what the consumer wants does not matter to Microsoft. It is what THEY want.
I read about this before. In Windows 2000 it's only for drivers, and you have the *option* of using what Windows says is not guaranteed to work, etc., but in Windows XP, it most likely will require official signing for any app to actually work. Hence MS will be able to review apps, etc., and of course native ones like WMP 8.0 will be pushed.
However, what about whether Windows XP will *play* my 320kbit/sec MP3 backups of my albums? I don't use my original CD, etc., but make copies for the car, and MP3 for the computer. It could all go to shit really quickly for them if word gets around within months after XP shipping in the main consumer sites that XP stops you d/l songs, etc., .
Acting stupid isn't much fun when there's someone around who knows better
The article does NOT say that the rent-a-center version of Windows will not play MP3 files. Neither does it say that it will be fundamentally crippled when it comes to the creation of MP3 files.
.DOC format is any indication, I wouldn't touch WMA with a ten foot pole. Why give M$ yet another way to create incompatibilities and headaches when you try to use someone else's products?
What it does say is that Microsoft will limit the ability of the built-in media creation tools to create MP3 files in favor of their own MWA format.
In other words it doesn't matter. Anyone wanting to create MP3s will simply use something else.
But to read the responses that people post, you'd think that XP had an anti-MP3 layer built in to the OS itself preventing both the playback of existing MP3's, as well as causing applications that can create them to crash.
A conclusion is a foolish thing to jump to.
If the word
In the big picture open standards are best, even if the standards are not as good as other standards that are proprietary.
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
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You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
A man who wants nothing is invincible
Is this a quote from Steve Jobs in 1984? The original 128 Mac and the Fat Mac were exactly like this. Totally non-upgradable, it wasn't until the Mac plus that there was anything you could upgrade (increase the memory only), and the Mac SE before there was an expansion slot.
Those that forget history are condemmed to repeat it.
Fraunhofer is a huge research institute with massive economic and political power, but more importantly their licencing of MP3 is handled by Thomson/RCA which is huge in the USA. MS could not rip Thomson off and get away with it.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
and don't forget: 20 MP3s, simultaneously playing----BACKWARDS! :)
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Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
This isn't about some inherent switch in the OS that makes mp3's sound crappy. It's only if you use Microsoft's crappy media player to rip and encode your files. Those of us with any other jukebox program will do just fine at 192 and 256. :)
... is that he will embrace MP3s and then extend them with subliminal "BUY MICROSOFT SOFTWARE" messages when you play them back.
Call me paranoid but I don't want the soft voice of Bill Gates in my ear however close to the edge of perception.
Bob.
Everyone knows this except the people on the wrong side of the digital divide - which, increasingly, is no longer made of people too poor to have access to computers, but increasingly refers to those type of person who will say, after using XP, "Gee, I tried recording MP3 and it sounded really bad!!" In other words, the gullible, the old, and the stupid.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
It's not unbelievable, either. What applications need lots of fast, raw, error-corrected access to CD-ROMs? CD rippers, and that's about it. The games market, Real Media, etc, can be coerced into "optimizing" for XP.
And despite the "gee, whiz, this shoar will help lee-nux" posts, the only people who can rejoice over this are 1) Fraunhofer and 2) Real Media. I bet that 50% of the CDs out there are Real-Jukebox-ripped. Although proprietary and enshitted formats are the default, most people seem to figger it out and get mp3s (which goes to show how much computer illiteracy goes out the window when "free stuff" is the reward).
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
If most of the music out there is in MP3 format or if the P2P servers only accept MP3s then the windows user will want to rip MP3s or listen to MP3s.
The solution is simple. Anybody who runs a gnutella or napster like server simply rejects any files that are not MP3s. Joe Shmoe will end up being a leech sucking up MP3s but never uploading anything because like most windows users he is too stupid to learn anything. Eventually Jow Smoe can only swap with the other brittany spears fans.
That's all good because it suits the MPAA just fine.
War is necrophilia.
So fundamentally, MS might be screwing themselves here, by breaking the software (more than likely, WMP) that people use. People use winamp because it's simple, gets the job done, and has a consistent interface. Many people use the DivX;) player or winamp as opposed to WMP for most of their media (in windows), since MS has already cripled their codecs and various other things fairly severely.
If MS makes it so other programs can't associate to .mp3's and such other than WMP, then I fear MS is going to have some further problems down the road. So much for the "we give the customers what they want", which was so lividly portrayed in the recent interview here on Slashdot. That was nothing more than a PR ploy, and contained nothing of factual ordinance.
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CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Take a look at your own quote. "Under Microsoft's new restrictions... MP3 music 'sounds like somebody in a phone booth underwater'..." . Your point-and-click newbie user will not know that the reason they can't get their music to sound good using "MP3" is because Microsoft's default software is hobbled to specifically generate a poor recording. This is not support for a format, but a bait-and-switch. And you know it.
The sad part here is not the low quality of this troll, but the fact that there are people who will honestly believe this garbage. David Farber was right.
Impressive.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
>Think about it, what keeps users coming back to Windows? Two things: 1. They already have the software, 2. They know how to use that software.
Linux is an OS. People are not going to reinstall/delete their harddrive over this. What about their games? What about compatiblility with what they use at work?
What about Apple?
Its not as simple as this.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Excitable person aren't you.
>Your nice, small, perfectly sounding *.wma files are totally useless to me for the following reasons.
This is your sentence. And this is where I was putting in the the Japanese/Anime reference to.
Its _just_ a file format, just like Amime is a comic. Yet you get all out of shape because of it. There are lot of Mac applications which are nice, small and perfect but totally useless to me, but you don't see many people going off on it.
Remember no one is forcing you to use this format.
>Market forces
Widen your definition to everyone in the market and not just MS and the consumers. The content providers want this protection. MS is going to provide it to them. Everyone, IBM, RealPlayer etc are trying to get their standards out there. Thats the market, thats the race, thats the market. Its about money, thats the market forces. Open your eyes. If it was only what the consumer wanted then everything would be of the highest quality and free.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
For what? For people sharing MP3s? Or for Microsoft's dominance of the home desktop?
Either someone will hack around this limitation and the patch will be as hard to quash as DeCSS, or you'll see this:
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Agreed, but part of what makes digital audio "magic" is that copy/move/share ability, which is exactly what's being targeted here. Digital audio that's locked in place on your harddrive and can only be accessed by certain "blessed" software isn't magic; it's either an almost useless pain in the ass, or a challenge to the Information Liberation Front.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Makes me think of a future Linux advert:
Linux - because you are innocent until proven guilty. (with imagery os happy families watching their holiday videos or whatever)
Windows - because you are a low life cheating thieving scumball. (with images of business people not being able to copy essential data, "I need this movie NOW! Why won't this machine let me have it?", then images of families not being able to see the home movies with a requestor saying "You are not allowed to copy digital content" "But its OUR content!")
MP3 is already out of date. The MPEG 4 AAC audio codec is (or should be) the successor. I think it's been time for a while now to throw out MP3s...it was already old technology when it hit big.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
If anyone would care to take a look at the last few paragraphs of the WSJ article, they'd see that this only applies to the MS software. Any other software, while still needing to be optimized for Windows XP, still has the ability to record at whatever bitrate it wants to.
They are simply trying to make WMA the standard by bundling in recording software that won't record MP3's over a 56K sampling rate.
Think about it. If 1/3 of all the slashdotters here became programmers, and damn GOOD programmers (not that hard. The key is DISCIPLINE), would Microsoft stand a chance?
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Genius dies of the same blow that destroys liberty.
Somebody said that users don't know to install non-pre-installed software on their computers. Almost everyone using Windows XP will be getting an internet connection. Everyone getting an internet connection talks to an ISP. ISPs can give people CDs whose install process says "such-and-such a program gives you this-and-that benefit(s). Do you wish to install it?" People will install the software and use that instead.
The solution to OEM bundling could be more bundling. Fight fire with fire.
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Genius dies of the same blow that destroys liberty.
It says
"plans to severely limit the quality of music that can be recorded as an MP3 file using software built into the next version of its personal-computer operating system , Windows XP, according to the report. "
That means that Windows Media Player that is built into Windows XP will only record MP3 at a lower quality bitrate. It DOES NOT mean that you can't use another tool to rip your 192bps MP3s
The Windows Media Player in Win2K/98/ME wont even record MP3s at all.
MHh.. i was thinking about possible ways to scrable all other programs except mircosofts mediaplayer from reading data of the cdrom.. but as you say, this probably wouldnt be a very good idea in the united states of imaginable freedome..
:)
besides, how many hours would it take to be cracked?
Presumably Windows Media Player or equivalent will continue to play Mp3s recorded at any bitrate, it will just not be able to *record* at a higher bitrate. This is pretty stupid for MS to do, because people will just choose to use another piece of software to do the recording, ie. not Windows Media Player. So in the end... people will not use MS software anyway, and the MS proprietary format will die quickly.
Spyky
If MS really manages to "unsupport" MP3 into oblivion it may turn out to be not a good thing at all since the Media Industry will happily go along with this scheme (they want content protection at all costs, even if it means to depend on Microsofts proprietary standard, anyone remember the GIF story?). At first everything will be fine and dandy, until most windows people forgot about MP3 players. So: less/crappy MP3-players -> less MP3 -> less music under Linux (you don't think MS will release a player for Linux, do you?). Then the Media Industry will happily screw the consumers until "fair use" is a fairy tale. Next Microsoft will screw Media Industry and Consumers by demanding license fees for their proprietary standard (see Marcovision) Or just make recording software expensive to rent (why sell it at all ...). Maybe they even sell the players (yeah, they come for free ... you only need to purchase Windows).
The obvious way to thwart this plan is reverse engineering the Microsoft codec. Then it will be DeCSS all over again. The other way is not to use that new standard. But microsoft doing everything to make it look bad and just stopping short of having it's new OS erase them off the HD on sight is really making it hard to convince Joe User to go on with MP3.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
- "early testers of beta versions of Windows XP already complain that the most popular MP3 recording applications -- which compete with Microsoft's format -- don't seem to function properly"
Surely the phrases "MP3 recording" and "which compete with Microsoft's format" are redundant.I think you meant to say:
Look at it people, it's not as if MS was going to make sure that no MP3 are going to be able to play on the Windows XP.
All they're doing is give a low-quality MP3 encoder with it (as compared to none), and have it be able to encode in their own proprietary format with high quality.
The current encoders might not work all that well right now with it, but they'll be updated so that they can run with it pretty quickly I think.
Lazy people who just want to use what is built-in might want to start using the Windows Audio format, but there's not much preventing you from keeping your MP3 around.
Sure MS wants to push against MP3s, but so far they haven't planned anything drastic with it like banning them from their new OS. Yes, they're using their clout to encourage people not to use it and they'll be pretty successful I think, but people will still have a choice.
A registry setting allowing one to go over 56k doesn't exactly comfort me. Once content controls are built and integrated into Microsoft products, the controls are no longer in my hands but in Microsoft's.
Microsoft can easily, once the basic mechanism is coded and in place, at any time and with any "Windows Update" patch (now automated?) change the underlying DLLs or OS code to reject registry settings above, say, 56k if its in their interest to do so.
--LP
I remember seeing an article on The Register a while back describing a mechanism in Windows XP to prevent "unauthorized music" from being played AT THE DRIVER LEVEL. That was the most frightening thing I had read about Microsoft's monopoly control yet. If the OS controls the device, then you CANNOT read/write to it without the OS's, and therefore Microsoft's, permission! Remember, in Linux you can write directly to and from audio devices (/dev/audio) because the OS provides this for you. I imagine that music will be digitally signed, remote servers will be paged for permission, and then it will play if approved. The bonus is that Microsoft has never, and probably WILL never, understand security, so this will be trivial to circumvent. But trivial for the 0.1% of computer users who realize that there are alternatives to Microsoft. For the 99.9% who use the default config, it will be WMA or bust. :(
Does anyone have any ideas how we can get around this?
"Certainly, when Microsoft decides to put something in their operating-system support, it becomes the standard," says Mr. Farber, who testified for the government during the Microsoft antitrust trial. "The average consumer will use what comes on the disc when he buys the machine. They're very effective in that way."
But, of course, they don't have a monopoly, nor nuthin'...
My question is, if something like the MP3 format came about w/out Microsoft, How can Microsoft kill it? I mean, I do understand the digital rights thing, and I don't totally disagree with it... but when MS's WMV format isn't available for platforms other than the ones that Micro$oft wants to support, then it's not a valid replacement for MP3. (At least REAL Audio can be played under Linux.)
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
If they push the format to WMV, then they are DEFINATELY NOT weakening their monopoly. MS has no investment in MP3. They can't control the format, they don't get any revenue from it, and they don't don't own a patent on it.
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
$899 gets you an entry level iMac with an easy to use OS that lets you have the power of Unix if you want it. I think that XP is really playing into Apple's strength. Apple is playing themselves as a content creation machine and a digital home hub while MS is busy kneecapping its own content creation abilities with this 56k bandwidth MP3 creation limit to Windows Media Player.
It smacks of the Kerberos fiasco except now they're messing with the mass market, not just large company IT administrators.
No, I don't think that a few hundred in hardware costs is going to be viewed as expensive compared to the heartburn avoidance.
DB
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crazy dynamite monkey
There is a size limit.. It's like 5M of text, but I deal with files that size constantly, and am constantly prompted to use Wordpad..
.sig: Now legally binding!
*sigh*... no. Windows XP will be adopted for the same reason Windows ME is being adopted: OEM bundling. No one buys OSs on purpose, they buy a computer, and it needs an OS. What they get will be whatever Microsoft wants to give them.
And, given that XP is NT-based and ME is still basically a DOS patch, maybe old windows users will be essentially forced to upgrade -- if all the new programs come out "WinXP/2000 compatible," then you are stuck if you don't have an NT-based windows.
I think they've got this one in the bag. D'oh.
In order for people to start using this format, there need to be at least 2 easy to use free apps (or both in one)
Aside from fans, I don't see anyone tightly tied to any mp3 players, as it's the content that really matters. If a player can handle both, then people will more freely be able to make the switch.
- passion
" 'The industry doesn't want [MP3] pushed, and Microsoft and RealNetworks don't want it pushed. The consumer is going to eat what he's given' says David Farber"
" 'Let them eat cake' said Marie Antoinette"
How does this crap get moderated up?
Those specs are for the "Easy PC" - a version of PCs sold to people who don't want to deal with a lot of the stuff a lot of PCs make you deal with today - you know, those same people who like buying fruit-colored cars and computers? There was an article about this on Slashdot a few days ago too. I won't go into the details of why anyone would want to buy a computer like that - this crowd is obviously too narrow-minded to get it - but rest assured that that won't be the only kind of XP Box sold.
Mmmm.. Donuts
They talked about it last week, and all they are going to do is not ship Windows Media Player 8 with an MP3 encoding codec. HOWEVER, it is entirely possible to both play MP3s and install someone else's codec.
.NETish database that brings cover art and lyrics down for the CDs you rip (into wma, of course) and the new wma codec sounds v.good indeed at 56k.
Actually I have a copy of WMP8 and it rocks. Built in CD burning, nice interface, a link to a
Now, I have a nice mp3 player that supports wma, and by ripping with WMP8 at 56k I can get twice the music in my pocket and it sounds better.
that's such an evil ploy.
I'm pretty sure, while they lower the quality of their encoders, will *advertise* about it. Simply because even Joe 6-packs are NOT using WMP to record MP3 nowadays. They download other softwares to encode.
To effectively limit the quality of MP3's recorded, MS has to get everyone using its encoder. But as of now, not many people even KNOW that WMP can encode.
You'll hear a lot about "Now we have MPe encoders built in!!".
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
Please read Cornell Law School's Antitrust Primer. It will explain that it is illegal to use dominance in one market, like the PC OS dominance of Microsoft, inorder to influence another market, like the recording and distribution of music. Start posting the *DAMAGES* to consumer choice so we can talk about the monetary value of what they are taking away. Then we can sue them.
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
I don't know anything about xmms, but WMP7 uses 50% of sys resources (WinAmp uses ~10%) and WMP7 has horible support for variable bit mp3's (ie: it skips anything over what it thinks the bit rate is).
___
It was me, I did it, I moved your cheese
This is a great thing to know, but it doesn't change the fact that Microsoft is deliberately weakening MP3 in order to promote their own proprietary format. I can't expect my younger music-pirate brother to figure this out (or find it on the internet).
WMA may be a better sounding format, but it's dirty ball to do what they are doing to consumers with this move.
MP3 is effectively an open standard. It is not truly free in the sense of Ogg Vorbis, but in practice people make encoders and decoders without paying a cent to Fraunhaufer. It is, or will become, the GIF of music.
If in fact MP3 is under fire from The Man, we don't need more fragmentation in the scene. Concentrate on strengthening the MP3 format. IMO, the risk of (effectively) losing freedom regarding the distribution of music is not worth the small gain in freedom from using a free format.
Ummm, did anyone consider that perhaps MSFT may cut off direct hardware access thereby not allowing any rippers direct access to the CDROM drive. Perhaps not possible with 9x, but it would be with an NT kernel. After all, why does the end user need raw access to the CDROM?
You would then be forced to go through an API to access a CD. The API itself will do the encoding and then pass on the result. The API would only support those codecs that MSFT allows to be plugged into the architecture. No MP3, no OGG.
This would fit in very nicely with the plans to have end-to-end encryption in all media devices. It would probably be enough to stop the average end user.
Of course it may be possible to hack, but I wouldn't want to be doing that in MSFT's house of cards. I'm sure they could set it up so that your system becomes very unstable if you install a hacked API. Oh wait, perhaps they are already doing that ... :)
Is the real reason that no one would buy such cars? If nothing else could be called monopoly abuse, this surely is. No other company may afford to limit features and introduce new bugs "to drive users away from something". Thats simply arrogant.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
I have nothing against Ogg Vorbis--except maybe its silly name--but it's not going to have any impact at all outside the geek community. Why? Everyone who's ever used music on his PC knows what an mp3 is. Most people know about the new Windows format, and when the new Windows XP hits the streets with built-in Windows Media creation at high quality, it will gain even more penetration--already some digital players support it. But no one outside of the people who read Slashdot or other geek sites has ever heard of Ogg Vorbis. And they probably never will.
First of all, the name is just dumb and totally non-descriptive. MP3 could get away with being non-descriptive because it was the first, and for a long while the only popular choice. But every new format has the words "Audio" or at least "Media" in it. Because people need to know what a product is quickly and easily, not scratch their heads wondering what it does. Plus, the name can't be taken seriously. No mainstream news site will cover Ogg Vorbis much based on that fact alone. If the name sounds like a joke, the product will be treated like a joke. I know there's a long tradition of interesting naming in the Linux community, but average non-Linux-geeks don't like products with stupid names. It may be shallow, but it is a fact. If Ogg had just been called something like "Free Audio Format" or "Open Sound System" or some such, it would have actually had a chance at the mainstream. As it is, I don't picture Kurt Loder saying "Ogg Vorbis" any time soon, although he's said "mp3" and even "Windows Media" before.
Good luck, but between MP3 files--which will still remain common, since 3rd party software always finds a way around MS incompatibilities--, the newer Windows format, and RealAudio (which I hate, hate, hate, hate), Ogg Vorbis stands littel chance of making it outside of geekdom.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
All an mp3 ripper does is convert one set of data (uncompressed audio) to another kind of data (compressed audio). I can't see how they can detect this.
The answer is that Microsoft are saying that they'll limit the quality of recordings made using the built in software, not those made on Windows XP. Use something else to encode / your mp3s, and you're fine.
I'd mention the fact that this story could have been written more carefully, but that's getting cliched. ;)
The article states you will not be able to use the *built in Microsoft Utility* to record higher than 56k. When was the last time you used any of MS's built in utilities past dialup connection and solitaire?
They mention many third party apps don't seem to work properly on the current betas/RC's. Again, I expect this to be remedied once XP hits the shelves and a little bit of time passes.
I think the article is right in that many mainstream users *don't* care which format or utility they use, but I don't think its mainstream users who are going to be ripping/encoding CD's.
So, basically this article says Microsoft will, in their own applications, favor their own format over a third party format. Wow, I know that surprises the hell out of *me*.
-- if(game-theory) moderate++;
Just like the Internet, software users route around obstacles.
--
...I'll start using it. Untill then, I'll stick with mp3. Does anyone have a projected release date? I've been waiting for this for years now, so I'm not holding my breath.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
This looks like the software built into XP (Windows Media Player) will suck for ripping MP3s, but will rock for recording Windows Media Format files. This does NOT affect third party programs like MusicMatch, etc. except for the fact that people may not want to buy or download another music program if XP already has one (think I.E. vs Netscape).
However if people are already used to the MP3 scene and have invested lots of time creating a collection (and buying portable mp3 players) then this tactic may not work as expected. If Microsoft did start messing with third party software then I would expect that antitrust lawyers would have a field day.
Nah, it's a stupid, blind Cyclops.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
4. What happens when someone cracks the "copy protection" in the WMA format? Is MS gonna change it without regard to compatibility?
All digital audio security right now is inherantly broken - you can break any of them by writing a mock sound card driver that dumps to disk, then play to that sound card.
The hardware restrictions. Watch out for the hardware restrictions...
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
My god, man. Have you ever heard of the paragraph tag?
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
The middle mind speaks!
Linux.
I'm serious, as a Windows user I don't how I'd live without the simple tools that Linux provides.
Including Lame, Ogg Vorbis, CDparanoia, etc.
KFG
to replace .mp3 with .wma for the express purpose of controling, and taking a financial cut of, all digital media.
"Nothing to see here, move along."
KFG
...I'm supposed to PAY for this?
---
I'm sure M$ can stop my copy of CDEX from using lame to create my mp3s. Give me a break. All this will mean is that M$ won't be giving you any tools to record mp3s and will be plugging the hell out of WMA.
Microsoft even pushed for full multimedia on PCs.
Correction - they pushed for full secure multimedia on PCs. Nobody at M$ ever said anything about fair use, etc.
---
The AOL-Time Warner-Microsoft-Intel-CBS-ABC-NBC-Fox corporation:
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
If the article is right, MS has changed the OS slightly so audio ripping software (from other vendors) doesn't work well anymore ('it is not optimized for XP').
(-% TwistedMind %-)
The posters who argue that Microsoft's monopoly is so strong that no one can damage it, so strong that there is in effect no choice for the poor dumb schmuck consumer, are completely neglecting Apple.
Apple began to suffer when most of the PCs being purchased were for use in the business environment. There was a certain amount of fashion involved, a certain amount of price sensitivity, a certain amount of incompatibility with Microsoft Flight Simulator (which was hot in executive's offices at the time), and a definite requirement to support the same file formats as the office productive tools used by one's coworkers.
Now, the business market is saturated, most every American home has a PC, but where is the growth going to come from? Second computers. Computers for the kids. And do the kids give a flying window about Powerpoint? I think not. The kids care about pop culture. This is a growth market, and Microsoft will lose it if they drive the kids to Apple. Jobs knows it, that's what "Rip...Burn" is all about.
How does this make money for Microsoft? I'm not a direct shareholder anymore, but if I were, I would definitely want to hear from the honchos an answer as to why they are weakening their monopoly to fight somone else's war.
I'm sorry but this situation must be corrected. So far, no one has enlightened this poor troll. I know for nearly everyone else this is review, but it appears that it is indeed necessary.
Red Hat did not invent Linux, Linus Torvalds (sp?) and a whole bunch of developers from all over the world did, and they did it mostly in their free time. They are not 'hackers' in the sense that that they are not some evil hoard conspiring to steal your credit card number and publish which porn sites you visit.
Red Hat sells a prepackaged version of linux which they have worked hard to form into a viable and competative consumer product complete with support and continued development. Debian, is a completely free, open source project. It includes nothing that you would have to pay money for. Debian, by definition makes no money. Read their social contract for a little more insight.
Now, just because it is free does not mean it is unsafe. No safe is uncrackable and no network is perfectly secure. As such, criminals often have a better knowledge of proprietary software such as windows NT, etc. than the network administrator running the system simply because the knowledge base is not public and the net admin can only learn what information is provided him. At best, the network admin and the criminal or on level ground. Open source makes that knowledge base public and you don't have to trust someone with your security you can secure things yourself. The burden is not on Microsoft to protect your credit card or porn habits, it's on you.
Hopefully, armed with this new knowledge, an enlightened debate can ensue.
I am willing to pay for quality products and to support musicians, but I am not willing to let my choices be made for me simply under the guise that some mega corporation has my best interests in mind. People will use microsofts preinstalled software because by and large, the computer consumer is a sheep and if it's at all difficult, they curl up into a fetal position and cry for bill gates to powder their ass and make everything smell better. Napster did not create MP3's but it made it simple for even the most ignorant user to download anything he or she wanted. It just happened to be free.
And FILE FORMAT COMPATIBILITY. This is the big one IMHO, maybe even more than marketing. It doesn't matter if KWord or AbiWord or StarOffice are usable AND can make good documents AND have been advertised during the Super Bowl; they have to be able to display and print the docs sent Joe Average by his neighbor who uses M$ Office. Ditto for Gnumeric etc. versus Excel.
For those who didn't notice, the hardware spec is as printed in ZDNet, the well known pro Microsoft rag. Their headline is: Future perfect: Microsoft's spec for your next PC.
Now I am just passing on what this pro MS rag has said, and hope they have done their research correctly. If they got it wrong, then please dump of ZDNet.
In any case, it is the dream of MS to get people back on the treadmill of buying on the regular upgrade plan.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Give up the anti-Nader nonsense will you? Here we have a country that out of millions of people can barely decide which of the royal families' sons they want to have as president. I mean the margin was what, 1%? The guy who got the most votes loses the election because a state like Florida has a margin of a few thousand votes for the other guy? The potential statistical error involved was greater than the difference in the votes!
Either this points up that America is a very conflicted country divided sharply into two very separate camps, or maybe its indicative that there are a few key issues which have been made into false dichotomies, when-- in fact-- most Americans are a little fuzzy on their stance, sitting on the fence, in the grey area, you know... centrist. They really don't know about the fundamental differences, because there aren't any.
We had a Democrat president for 8 years and he brought us Chinese spy scandals, sexual harrassment in the Oval Office, delivered on almost none of his promises to gays, racial profiling by police forces is the hot topic at the END of his term, pollution really hasn't changed, AIDS is on the rise again, the WTO, COPA, then CIPA, the DMCA, whose FTC allowed the AOL-Time merger, and I know we all got the sense that when his lawsuit situation wasn't looking so good he used a military action to divert our attention. Then his right-hand man runs for president and says nothing new. This guy who is married to one of the founders of the Parents' Music Resource Center, is a born-again Christian, chooses an extremely conservative Jew as a running mate, and mouths mostly the same platitudes as his opponent does. And you really want to pretend there's a difference?
With the exception of rescinding some overseas funding for abortions (a move a lot of Americans support) and maybe this Kyoto treaty thing (and recall it's not like we're breaking the treaty, the Democrat never agreed to it anyway) what has GW done that's so terribly conservative? How about appointing a halfway progressive gay man to head the AIDS office?
No, the two parties are not that different. They mostly say a whole lot of nothing and bow to public pressure (which is fairly unanimous... Americans, for all the diversity the culture could have, have basically settled for a land that is basically one big strip mall of the same ten stores) by finding fairly bland compromises on most divisive issues. So please, the reason Nader had to focus on swing states was precisely because that's where Gore went to try and sway people away from Nader. If Gore had focused his anti-Nader rhetoric in states where he had the election sewed up, then Nader probably wouldn't have been in places like FL asking for votes either. Instead Nader has to be there convincing people that they are not handing the election to Bush if they vote for Nader, he has to be there convincing them that two parties are not enough and that the sooner they stop voting for the lesser of two evils the sooner one of the evils will stop winning the election.
Note: I didn't vote for Nader, Bush, or Gore.
I do not have a signature
Even after Napster's toast (and it's clearly toast) the adoption of MP3 as a standard won't slow down. Users will keep sharing via tools like Gnutella; people will keep rip-mix-burning onto CDs. WMA won't let you do this, so it won't be as useful, and people won't use it.
Well, at least I won't, and I would bet there are about 20 million others like me who are pretty damn satisfied with MP3 and, in the words of an old cigarette ad, would rather fight than switch.
sulli
RTFJ.
Also to play tunes in a jukebox fashion rather than one CD at a time. After I got Apple's iTunes, I quickly filled up >1G of my hard drive because of this feature. Now of course I share that folder on Napster, but even once Napster's dead and gone this will still be useful.
Having to jump through any hoops at all to move this to another computer, hardware device, etc. is simply unacceptable, so I won't switch!
sulli
RTFJ.
If I had MS stock, I'd sell it now.
sulli
RTFJ.
Read the WSJ article, emphasis and comments added:
Under Microsoft's new restrictions -- which prevent its built-in software from recording MP3 files at fidelity rates higher than 56 kilobits per second -- MP3 music "sounds like somebody in a phone booth underwater," says P.J. McNealy, an analyst who researches Internet audio issues for Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Conn.
(Existing versions of Microsoft's audio software don't allow consumers to record music as MP3 files of any quality.)
[And so nobody uses them!]
The new restrictions in Windows XP won't prevent other vendors' software applications from recording MP3 music at a higher fidelity, but early testers of beta versions of Windows XP already complain that the most popular MP3 recording applications -- which compete with Microsoft's format -- don't seem to function properly
[Maybe because MS is using its typical anticompetitive dirty tricks?]
apparently because of changes Microsoft made to how data are written on CD-ROMs under Windows XP. Microsoft says that while other software vendors' products may not be "optimized" to run with Windows XP, those products should run acceptably with the operating system.
Whoever at MS thinks Joe User will stick to 56kbp is smoking crack. Everyone will simply use Winamp or one of the hundreds of other MP3 tools. If MS wants to make sure nobody uses its software, this is a great way to do it!
(Compare Apple, whose excellent iTunes is user-friendly and MP3 only.)
sulli
RTFJ.
You stated that, "The period should appear within the quotation".
This was done originally because the metal blocks that typesetters used were expensive. Furthermore, a small period was easily damaged by scraping or denting. Since putting a . outside of the quotes would leave it exposed and more likely to be damaged, it was placed within the quotes.
Since, virtually NO media is typeset these days (using conventional methods), we no longer need to protect the . within the ".
Furthermore, it is clearer to put the punctuation that has nothing to do with the quotation, outside of the quotation.
Keeping
If Fraunhofer were a US National company, then I'm sure that the anti-trust laws would prevent this type of behavior. Especially if MS somehow disabled or crippled the ability of other MP3 encoders to work under XP.
Keeping
Well, RealNetworks already makes that claim about their own RealJukebox software. Whether or not it's true, though, this doesn't mean that you can't record better-quality MP3's on Windows -- just not using Microsoft's software.
The upshot is probably that Napster and other MP3-sharing tools will probably have lower-quality MP3 files for you to steal, but you yourself can still record MP3 in high-quality just by changing the prefs or using another ripper.
Don't overreact, all. This is just Microsoft's way of saying once again: "You should use our format instead of an open standard."
I've got one example. Notepad. Notepad unequivocally sucks ass compared to any other text editor, but it has just enough features (searching/replacing, no size limit at least in NT, word wrap, that's about it) to make it useful.
If I'm using a machine for any serious coding, I'll install a better editor. But for simple editing of configuration files, it's just not worth the effort. Notepad gets the golden good enough award. It's always there, and always just barely good enough.
The only new information in this Reuter's article is that the audio recorder built in to XP will only allow the recording of low-quality MP3s. You can still use whatever you want to rip your CDs.
True, Microsoft is trying to guide users away from the MP3 format, which is despicable, but this isn't some heavy-handed move to ban MP3s from XP altogether.
By the way, here's another story from StreamingMedia.com that reports things very differently . . . according to this one, Microsoft has not yet decided (as of March 28) whether to include MP3 encoding abilities in Media Player.
Quote:
Microsoft's new restrictions -- which prevent its built-in software from recording MP3 files at fidelity rates higher than 56 kilobits per second... (Existing versions of Microsoft's audio software don't allow consumers to record music as MP3 files of any quality.)
If consumers didn't use Microsoft Products to record mp3's then they've already gotten used to using alternative software. Non-tech-saavy people will keep using the alternative software because they won't know that Microsoft has a product that can sample mp3's. Whereas tech-saavy people will know the limitations of said software and use an alternative. If Microsoft are targeting individuals who are new to computing and are not computer literate, then M$ do not seem to realise that the next generation of computer users are very computer literate. (Just think of any kid age 12+) Most basic office workers can now talk comfortably about Gigs and Ethernet.
Pinky: "What are we going to do tomorrow night Brain?"
Brain: "I would tell you Pinky but this 120 char limi
Putting crappy encoding rates into Windows is a bad thing. It'll also probably work. Why? Because most users don't download alternatives. Whats the most used telnet client in the world? Windows Telnet. Its crap. Whats the most used web browser? Internet Explorer. It used to be crap. Why? Because they were in with the windows package from the beginning.
I remember when IE sucked, but people still used it over Netscape because downloading and installing Netscape was a hassle. People didn't want to do it. People didn't know they could do it.
Its all very well running around and saying "Well I'll just download a better program". Great, but the majority of people won't. They'll use what they have and if they are gently persuaded to use something else then they will.
So yes, this is going to be a problem. The savvy people will download and use something else. Those that aren't so savvy (of which there are a hell of a lot more) will use what they are given.
If what they are given encourages them to use something else that gives a better result, then they'll do that.
--
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
This will be the next codec. The consumer will eat what he's given, but inventive and driven people will find a way past these "limitations".
Windows is bad enough the way it is. It's real nice to see that M$ is publically putting forth such great efforts to make their OS suck even more.
I'm sorry, but shouldn't companies try to improve their product?
/*drunk.. fix later*/
Picture it. It's 2020, computers are as cheap as TV's and with that CableTV access or Phone acess comes with it a faster internet connection. Every company in the RIAA decides to totally stop producing CDs, Tapes, Records, MusicDVDs, and whatever other hard copy medium exists and instead use a distant cousin of WMP and make everyone download it and share the profits with computer makers that put in hardware level copy protections in all computers(which they been preparing for the last 5 years). Now who is being forced?
It's not just a format. It's a baby step to the end of fair use. You get consumers to encode thier current albums with it, then when they share their music with other consumers (and they will), those people will want to get WMP too. Once there is %80 market share of WMP, RIAA members can sell you WMP files for CHEAP (this is called market dumping), making more people want computers with Windows so they can download music. Once people get used to buying music online, the RIAA members can all stop producing hard copies and totally destroy fair use.
It's not just a format. Copy protections stop Fair Use of copyright works. WinXP is the first step. MS wants to tie hardware and software so that when you replace your mobo, you will need a new copy of Windows. When you buy Music, you will need Windows. If you want to e-mail your mom, you will need Windows (as more poeple use Outlook, MS can have outlook by default use nonstandard HTML, making all other Mail readers allways play a game of catchup). I don't like Windows. I don't want Windows. I am damn glad some standards exists still that allow cross-platform sharing of files. If MS had its way, that wouldn't be the case and if the RIAA/MS had their way, fair-use would be a distant ruling by the Supreme Court that is no longer relevent.
Burn Hollywood Burn
So what you are saying is: If the company that controls 90% of the desktop computers wants to team up with the RIAA and make it impossible to copy songs the the comsumer buys, thereby making it impossible in the future to buy new albums that can't be copied for legimate fair uses, thats okay cause its "market forces".
Hogwash, utter hogwash. Market forces are about the consumer. That is the whole point of a free economy. That is why monolopies should NOT exist. When we allow one company to control 90% of home computers, it thinks bullshit like this is okay, and consumers just have to eat that dog food if they want to buy music (which eventually, they will if this goes unchecked). I'm sorry. I don't like monolopies. I especially don't like monolopies destroying fair-use in concert with record companies.
Burn Hollywood Burn
1. They don't work in MacOS X
2. They don't work in BeOS (x86)
3. They obviously encode very slowly ("PIII/700 laptop about 3x real time", geesh kinda slow, my 266 encodes mp3s (160) at 2.5X).
4. What happens when someone cracks the "copy protection" in the WMA format? Is MS gonna change it without regard to compatibility?
5. Even if I could use those files (meaning had Windows), I couldn't share them with anyone in my family, much less listen to them on any portable player.
6. Last but not least, from what I have seen of WMP (as limited as that is) in WinME, it blows nutz UI wise, is slow on anything other than a 400P2, and wastes LOTS of valueable screen space by default.
Burn Hollywood Burn
You are a troll, but thats okay. Trolling can be a fun experience. Let me give it a try. ;)
"I can't enjoy certain anime because I don't read nor understand Japanese.
You don't have a right to it.
Nor did I say I did. Don't read into a statement what is not there, makes you look like a reactionary fool.
"You post sounds like 'I want it all now! And I blame MS for it and not market forces or technology'."
"Market forces", I damn near cracked a rib reading this. Do you honestly think consumers WANT copy protections? Do you honestly think consumers want old formats to be "updated" as often as possible so people with new computers have more trouble sending files to people with older computers? You sound like the type of person who would say IE is more popular than Netscape because it is "better' (which, btw, runs totally against what MS planners thought). I really just don't understand how people can honest believe MS is where it is at because it is the "best". I really don't understand what "market forces" are at play other than "monolopistic bundling" when MS uses its ownership of Windows to try to kill a file format. People use what came with Windows. Most don't trust or even understand downloading enough to seek alternate players.
The ONLY reason MS wants to add copy protection to Windows is so they can get part of the theoritcal money people will pay to download music. The software industry has gone unchecked for too long. Most of the industry is consumer unfriendly, writes buggy code, and is trying to redifine what fair use is. I don't want to tell my children about the good ole days when we were actually able to buy music in a unencrypted form, make a copy for the car, a copy for the office, and loan it to friends to listen to. But, at this rate I will, because everything will be "encrypted" (even if its only ROT 26), the DCMA will stop people from breaking that encryption even if they want to merely want to play their files in their car. Not only that, if in the highly likely event that WindowsXPv12 (2010 release,build 5million) dies and you have to reinstall, your computer might suddenly think all those files you have backed up are pirated and refuse to use them (cause Windows is fucking STUPID and requires a FORMAT to reinstall). If the OS can identify your computer uniquely and .NET plays out, every time you visit goatse.cx, MS knows.
Sounds like a shitty idea, if you ask me. I'll stick to formats that don't have any level of prevention in them. XP might look harmless now, but don't think this is nothing more than a baby step towards destroying fair use.
Burn Hollywood Burn
The name "Ogg Vorbis" has way too geeky a sound to catch on with most people who are actually going to buy Win XP. It will have to be repackaged/remarketed as something else. Xiph is a cool name. It even works with the X in XP and OSX.
.xip files anyone?
(x-tinguish intellectual property, heh heh)
or maybe
.xph
(x-scape proprietary hedging)
(strong enough for a man, ph balanced for a computer)
Or perhaps I'm drunk on cheese.
--
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
> Relavent quote: The new restrictions in Windows
> XP won't prevent other vendors' software
> applications from recording MP3 music at a
> higher fidelity.
Well, another relevant quote:
> The new restrictions in Windows XP won't prevent
> other vendors' software applications from recording
> MP3 music at a higher fidelity, but early testers
> of beta versions of Windows XP already complain that the
> most popular MP3 recording applications -- which compete
> with Microsoft's format -- don't seem to function
> properly, apparently because of changes Microsoft
> made to how data are written on CD-ROMs under Windows XP.
Telling, no?
Virg
why is m$ stepping into the mp3 situation in the first place? how is it their job to try and police the distribution of mp3s, ect? their job is to provide an operating system. not a "you can use this and that". somewhere m$ is profiting from this move. bastards...
And not you either, if you get some decent ad blocking software. =)
www.proxomitron.cjb.net
Have fun.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
This is the way Microsoft ends
;-)
This is the way Microsoft ends
This is the way Microsoft ends
Not with a bang but a penguin
Sorry, I just HAD to.
Apologies to the original author.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
Friend, I'm with you, but you're mistaken here. People don't grab power for reasons. People grab power, to have power. Any reasons they give are merely excuses, every last damn time. Or, to quote Orwell (as if that's neccessary on /.), "Power is not a means; it is an end... The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."
They're pushing for CPPRM because it gives them a kick in the pants to control and dominate others. Not because they give a crap about "music pirating". The CPRM plans will continue regardless of M$'s success in this attempt.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
Where do you think Microsoft gets the money it uses to try to stamp out free software and innovation? From the joe schmoe end users over whose eyes it has successfully pulled the shorn hairs of a sheep! That's who.
As long as people on slashdot continue to be arrogant and flippant about letting the computer-illiterates suffer under Microfost, Microsoft will continue to be funded by those users. And will use that funding to continue to oppress free software.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
Uh...anyone heard of this little standard for audio?
.NET? All their data will be protected from loss, corruption and theft - Microsoft servers are very secure and reliable. Who doesn't have broadband access these days?"
I must say, I'm not surprised. Not at all. USB 2, MP3...what's next? Hard drives?
Mr. Gates: "Well, people will just have to learn to live without HD support in Windows 2010. Why don't they use
*chill running down spine*
The federal government badly needs to curtail MSFT's continual use of the OS as a crowbar to work its way into a market as it did with the browser, has done with the audio player, and continues to do. It's not MSFT that's bad. It's just a company acting as companies do - doing everything it can to extend market share. Until we have a government that takes antitrust seriously we're simply allowing them to walk all over us. As things get worse & worse (which they very well may) remember that it's you and I that are electing a government that tells them there's nothing wrong with doing it. It's our fault.
According to the WSJ article, XP manages to "kinda break" other player/encoders (like I assume MusicMatch, WinAmp, etc) yet provide a perfectly functional one of their own using their proprietary "secure" format. And then MSFT notes that they don't work because those apps "aren't optimized for XP". Of course they arent, because MSFT is controlling the competitive space.
It's as if you have a baseball game between, let's say the MSFT team and the MusicMatch team, only it's completely skewed. MSFT is the refs' employer and they have to answer to them for the calls. MSFT alone gets to make the rules as far as the dimensions of the field (after all, they built and retain ownership of all the stadia anyway), how many balls get you a walk to 1st base, and how many men are allowed on the field. The kicker is that they're not obligated by any means to inform the MusicMatch team what these rules are and how they'll be enforced. MSFT's response to this unfairness in the rules is that MusicMatch "should have known", even though there was no way to know until the game started.
This all plays into a larger and more important issue, that of the definition of the OS - a realm where MSFT has turned misrepresentation into an art form. To most of you computer literates I assume you feel that at its base an OS is the central piece of software that controls communication between software applications and a computer's hardware. Most would also add the software utilities that allow you to do hardware maintenance, disk defrag & formatting, a control panel-type system to do basic settings, and other basic programs. A GUI is also commonly considered (by non-*nix types) to be a portion of the OS, providing an intuitive environment in which to use programs.
There is, however, no stretch of the imagination that makes a media player part of the OS in other than an artificial way. This is also true for solitaire and other games, the internet browser, a video editor, and any number of other "improvements" coincidentally introduced to Windows soon after another company has popularized that same use for a computer. I fear for software makers, because MSFT seems to see no space in the software industry in which it doesn't want to be a player, and it can quickly rise to dominance because it's making the rules. Any corporation that writes software that isn't tied into the MSFT hegemony should be pushing for a consumer-accesible open source OS if only to level the playing field. For the software makers programming for the Windows OS is like drinking arsenic tainted water - sure it sates your thirst and makes you money for now, but it's certain not to be good for you in the end.
My hope is that between Hailstorm's co-opting of your personal info and the overt tendency of MSFT to seek dominance in every use of computers using its OS people would ignore XP upon release. The only thing short of government regulation that'd stop MSFT is a public humbling in the marketplace. I'd hope people would look before they buy. I'd hope they would be smart in thinking about how this OS might limit their right to do as they wish with their computers.
In the end however none of us can stop people from making the decision to buy an OS that limits their capabilities rather than extends them. Many people just want to do some desktop publishing, play games and email their friends and they don't care how they do it or what they're giving up to do it. It's certainly fine to feel that way and go & use an OS like XP if you do. We do need, however, to maintain a viable open alternative where MSFT and other companies as well as industry organizations (like RIAA) can't curtail our use of our own property. I really do think that as computers reach ubiquity in our lives people will see the democratic value of an open OS and a free information space, but it'll take time.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
hi all (george here)
you all may be WONDERING what window "XP" stands for.
here is what you do
1) write XP on a BLANK sheet of paper in LARGE letters
2) rotate that sheet of paper NINETY DEGREES to the RIGHT
3) it's an EMOTICON
it looks like CART MAN in SOUTHPARK
your buddy
-gbd
Absolutley. Windows XP is going to be an even bigger flop than 2000 was. Napster had some 70 Million plus users. The fact that these people had at least the know how to and understanding of MP3 files to realize how cool they are. Who is MS targetting with XP? Servers...No. Regular users who at least have a clue...No. Power users...No. The only people left are those who dont know a lot about computers and are just getting into them. I guess. But this group gets smaller and smaller daily. Soon, MS wont have anyone left to buy their OS's. I mean Gamers dont use ME, they use 98SE which came out more than 2 years ago. Linux and the BSD's are gaining the server market, and the power user market.
The best thing about computers is the freedom to do anything you please with them. Building copyrights into the OS will quickly make people turn to something else. Microsoft's days are being quickly numbered.
Arathres
I love my iBook. I use it to run Linux!
stainless steel
That will leave us and our MP3 collections (which, BTW, I say fall under fair use) free at last! I don't know if this is what Microsoft intends to happen, but I fully support it!
BTW, for you folks who didn't bother to read the real article, you can find it here. Please read this one before you chime in with ill-informed comments! Don't bash Microsoft until you actually comprehend the facts. I know that's a lot to ask of /.ers, but I've yet to give up....
That's right, only giant coporations are allowed to distribute culture.
Back off Napster, or Billy Gates will eat your children.
______
jeff13
If microsoft wants to do away with mp3's with a 'better quality' music format then let them. If they have found a better algorithm for music compression then maybe it's time for people to come up with a better format themselves.
The RIAA and software vendors are going to do whatever they please just as long as the public buys in to their nonsense. I don't really care if mp3's are going so sound like crap on my box. By the time xp is installed on everyones machine (if that even happens) there will be some other format or method for capturing music.
Maybe Microsoft should should consider the fact that people would rather have that dumb fscking paperclip on their machine then not be able to rip their own cds and play their own music.
I have yet to discover the real reason why farts linger longer in an office environment
I don't think there's been more obvious and open challenge to the Open Source community. MP3 should disappear; it's proprietary. But if Microsoft is allowed to control the standard format for digital audio playback then that's it: the world of commercial music is going to end up looking like the world of commercial software and that's an ugly, ugly picture. Two words: Fair Use. Do you know what this means? Of course, but for those who just fell off the truck, you have a legal, constitutionally guarenteed, Supreme-Court approved right to make copies of copyrighted materials YOU ALREADY OWN for personal use. If I own the CD I have the right to tape it, burn it to a new CD, to rip it to my hard drive, to make MP3s from that, all for my personal convenience. I have the right to stream it on the intertnet so I can listen to it at work. I can't legally trade, distribute or sell it. But I can use that copyrighted information any way I want to, once I buy an original. The publishing community doesn't have the political juice to overturn fair use so they're joining forced with M$ to simply make it technologically impossible. The big lie is that we need any more laws due to the digital revolution. Napster proves that: the average consumer will always need some sort of easy, accessible method to get their product. As soon as any illegal distribution network becomes big enough to make a dent in the publishing/recording industry's massive coffers, they'll get shut down. Piracy and bootlegs will always exist: fighting those who illegally (and despicably, from my point of view as a writer and songwriter) make personal profit from piracy is part of maintaining intellectual property laws. What is really the issue is the desire of the publishing/recording industry to change the paradigm from a pay for rights (you buy copyrighted material and receive all attendant fair use rights - essentially unlimited personal playback rights) to a pay to play model where you end up paying EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU LISTEN/READ/VIEW. It's a shaft job on the consumer. A total greed power play. And this is the beginning. I've said it once, twice, I'll say it a thousand times if I have to: There is only one way out and that is by artists cooperating with the open source community to forge a new model of distribution. We don't NEED the publishing/recording industry any more: If you have what it takes you will get 10X as rich selling yourself even if you take no steps to avoid piracy. Yeah, Yeah, I'm crazy (and long winded too). Interested? Get in on the ground floor - write at the e-mail above or to PO 3171 Minneapolis MN 55403 and find out what the REAL score is.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
So that's what they really think, huh? Well I have news for them: No consumer will choose to eat shit over cake.
I'm just glad we have other alternatives. The more they engage in cunning or predatory tactics, the more we are encouraged to move to the alternatives, or at the very least, Free Software.
Does anybody remember the Halloween document? Specifically, does anyone remember this comment from ESR's annotation: "Linux can win if services are open and protocols are simple, transparent. Microsoft can only win if services are closed and protocols are complex, opaque. To put it even more bluntly: "commodity" services and protocols are good things for customers; they promote competition and choice. Therefore, for Microsoft to win, the customer must lose." Well, it looks like he was right. Now I'm supposed to PAY for a Windows upgrade which actually gives me LESS functionality than I had before! Yes, I can use third party products, of course. But that doesn't change the fact that they're releasing a commercial product upgrade which is specifically meant to REDUCE the features of the product! And the sad thing is that people will buy it.
I know most people are sheep, but if this isn't enough for at least corporates choose Linux and dump M$, it's time you get used to that flying thing at boot time...
Linux *is* user friendly. It's not idiot-friendly or fool-friendly!
hacker: The XP port of lame will be out shortly. Lame indeed.
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If Microshaft really thinks that this is going to stop people from digitally recording their CD's, they are more insane than I thought. Couldn't we just move to the VQF format? http://www.vqf.com