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EMI Promises Downloadable Music

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the working-with-technology-rather-than-against-it dept.

SataiCam writes "The Economist has an article up referring to EMI's plans to implement digital music downloading starting on December 1 through a whole host of 'distributors'. They claim it will allow users to get music in 'the formats they are demanding' (ogg?), to burn copies of songs, and download them to other devices. Here's the press release from EMI."

1 of 298 comments (clear)

  1. Ogg.. no chance. by mumblestheclown · · Score: 2, Troll
    "users are demanding (ogg?)"

    The chance that ogg will ever be seriously adapted is about zero.

    • The argument for OGG is that some MP3 patent/process is owned by somebody.
    • In this way, the ogg campaign is similar to the days of 'burn all .gifs.'
    • Anti-gif campaigning went, essentially nowhere. Basically, Compuserve didn't go after anybody of import and PNG continues to be a marginally used format.
    • PNG is marginally used, despite being superior to .GIF, technically. The thing is, OGG is INFERIOR to even MP3, and certainly to WMA, etc, at least according to the OGG FAQ.
    • a path away from GIF entrenchment was relatively easy to do--just give everybody a new browser that supports both. The problem is that it's much harder to consider this for audio files considering how many mp3 (hardware) players are already in the field--it may not be technically ideal, but Mp3 is here to stay unless there is a compelling reason to switch.
    • Compelling reasons include:
      1. technical superiority (WMA has this, but even it can barely make a dent in mp3's market hold)
      2. mandates from hardware companies / ip holders - ie something that better considers DRM.
    I can see no compelling reason why OGG will ever gain any significant market share.