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MP3tunes Offers Music Service Without DRM

Posted by samzenpus on from the let-the-music-flow dept.

ThinSkin writes "Former MP3.com chief and Lindows CEO Michael Robertson will reenter the music world next week with MP3tunes, a service that promises music without DRM restrictions. MP3tunes hopes to attract users who are fed up with restrictions on copying music from sites that use digital-rights-management techniques, such as iTunes."

5 of 399 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Actually, in Soviet Russia, the music frees you by Devi0s · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Run a comments search of /. on AllofMp3:
    http://slashdot.org/search.pl?tid=&quer y=allofmp3& author=&sort=1&op=comments

    --
    - Have you ever noticed that the more you learn about technology, the more stupid you sound trying to explain it?
  2. The obvious problem by EvilStein · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    What if we think those bands you mentioned suck? :P

    Sometimes these "indy artists" are down there for a reason - they just lack any sort of mass appeal and don't do well outside of a niche market.

  3. Re:Hooray! by westlake · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    I am NOT suggesting that the struggle over DRM is in any way equivalent to the true struggles that those brave men led.

    Sure sounds like it, though.

  4. Again by daveschroeder · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    "Wealth" is NOT a zero sum game. If you think that any gains by someone who is wealthy equals a one-to-one decrease somewhere else, you are sadly, sadly, sadly mistaken. Yes, there are a finite amount of physical objects on earth. A finite amount of atoms in the universe. What's your point? You've demonstrated the height of utter, laughable ignorance if you believe for a second that wealth is zero sum, or that in order for the wealthy to become wealthier, they have to directly take from somewhere else (e.g., the "poor"). Perhaps you haven't grasped the concepts of growing economies that have been clearly demonstrated ad nauseum the world over. If you want to be disagreeable, sure, "wealth" can always be tied back in some way, shape, or form, to a physical object - or can it? Today, we consider information and intangibles a commodity. We even pay for them. (Well, at least some of us do.) How is that possible?! Buying an idea? Paying for services? In-sane! Take a macroeconomics course or something and stop lapping up the shit that your socialist friends are spewing from every orifice.

    1. Re:Again by daveschroeder · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Christ.

      These are all questions you can answer yourself. You know damned well that we pay for services, i.e., things that have no physical object associated with them. You also know damned well that he was referring to things like music having a physical manifestation, such as a CD. I'm agreeing with that point. But is a music performance a "physical manifestation"? You're not buying anything that you physically leave with. Paying for a service doesn't have a physical manifestation.

      I was agreeing with HIS premise about physical manifestations with retail value when related to wealth. Clearly that is true. It is ALSO true that we pay for things that have NO physical manifestation, such as services or performances. Now if you want to get into semantics, and say "well, the service has to be performed by someone; that's the physical manifestation" or "the musical performance, the artists, the instruments, and the venue are the physical manifestation" then you're just arguing semantics to be an asshole. The point is we pay for things were we don't get a *physical object in return* all the time. Things that have *retail value*. How is this a surprise?

      If you say that you're specifically talking about an "idea", not a "service", this is ALL an issue of semantics. But you know EXACTLY what I was talking about in both instances (not to mention that they were different contexts, since the person who I was replying to was continually trying to twist the argument in unrelated directions); you're just choosing to be an ass, which is fine and not surprising in the least.

      Just so there is no doubt about what I am saying:

      I did not contradict myself.

      I said we pay for things that have no "physical manifestation", that is, for which we get no object in return that is ours to keep, all the time.

      I also said that sure, in the specific argument of the person I was responding to, there needs to be a physical manifestation FOR THE SPECIFIC THINGS HE WAS TALKING ABOUT, but not always, and not in a general sense.

      No conflict. But nice try.

      Of course, none of this changes the fundamental truth that wealth is not a zero sum proposition, total wealth can grow, and that the concept of "wealth", overall and not viewed in extremely narrow or specific categories or market segments, is not finite (except in absurd terms that consider the limits of physical matter on the earth or in the universe; and yes, I am aware that there is a finite amount of "gold" on the earth: we're not talking about "gold", we're talking about the societal construct of "wealth", which has been proven to not be "finite", in those terms, and most definitely not zero sum, time and again).