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UC System Chooses Mindawn Download Service
An anonymous reader writes "In hopes of stemming the tide of students freely sharing copyrighted multimedia files over their campus networks, the University of California (UC) system has selected an online music and video service that supports Windows, Mac OS, and Linux to provide downloadable music and video for its approximately 200,000 student population. Unlike iTunes (which only supports Mac OS X and Windows) and Napster (which is Windows-only), Mindawn works with Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. In addition, instead of providing downloads that are degraded by what is known as "lossy compression," downloads from Mindawn are offered in both Ogg Vorbis and FLAC formats." (Vorbis files are lossy too, though my tin ears can't always tell.)
Is this "article" a paid advertisement?
The university I attend started Cdigix service last year. I was going to give it a free try, but it only works in Windows, so I never even touched it. Had it worked in Linux, I would have probably given it a try (If they had my type of music), and maybe continued using it.
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
The average college student listens to RIAA artists like Metallica, Britney Spears, etc.
Britney Spears is middle school music, not college music.
Word will get around campus
We're talking about music copying, not software copying!
But seriously, it's also possible that word will get around campus about the good songs on the system.
- All The Water of This World - Aaron English
- The Sense -
John Luttrell
-
Waterfall Carnival -
Frogg Cafe
-
Journey to Farpoint -
John Luttrell
-
Consider the Lilies -
JoAnn Gordon
-
Quest for the Heartland -
Ricocher
-
All This Time -
Frogg Cafe
-
You're Not Alone -
JoAnn Gordon
-
Windy Day -
John Luttrell
-
Full Moon -
Chrome Shift
Compare this to ITunes:- Pon de Replay (Radio Edit) -
Rihanna
- Feel Good Inc. (Album Crossfade) -
Gorillaz
- These Boots Are Made for Walkin'... -
Jessica Simpson
- Don't Cha (featuring Busta Rhymes)... -
The Pussycat Dolls & Busta Rhymes
- Best of You -
Foo Fighters
- Don't Phunk With My Heart -
Black Eyed Peas
- Sugar, We're Goin Down -
Fall Out Boy
- Behind These Hazel Eyes -
Kelly Clarkson
- Beverly Hills -
Weezer
- Lose Control (Featuring Ciara & Fa... -
Missy Elliott
Now how is this going to reduce piracy?It just sounds like they are throwing a bone to the RIAA in that they are AT LEAST making an attempt at offering an alternative to P2P perhaps trying to shield themselves from direct litigation on the REALLY, REALLY cheap.
'He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.' - Douglas Adams
$0.99 for an OGG version or $1.24 for a FLAC - what a ripoff.
Who came up with the $0.99 per song price point anyway? That's what they are on a CD where there's 16 songs, but 1 or 2 are worth a crap and the rest are junk.
I want songs at $0.30 per song for anything older than 6 months. $0.50 for a song between 1 and 5.999 months, $0.75 for a song that's 0-1 month old...
And none of this charging more because it's not lossy crap... give me a break already with the scams. If I have to pay more, I guarantee I'm giving it away to everyone I can think of... Hell, I'll probably get irked and burn CD's and leave them in the halls for all to take.
As for the selection on this thing - it sucks. It's not even close to what mp3.com was in it's heyday...
Oh well, this will come and go like the rest of the crap... One of these days someone out there will realize that if they give users what they want at a reasonable price - then the piracy will go down to about 5% (it'll never be zero)... then they can get back to business and create new songs rather than recycling the same crap day in and day out...
I just don't get this constant infantilisation of students in American colleges. Their students are adults, why should they be provided with music and video to stop them from stealing it (read: violate copyright etc etc, lets not start with that old chestnut)? Competent adults should surely be responsible for their own actions. How on earth has this landed on the plate of the institution anyway? If its a question of bandwidth usage that can be easily and almost immediately curbed without apology.
In my view institutions of higher education are just that, not glorified baby sitting services for adolescents. Things like introducing this service are a complete waste of the time of university employees and don't exactly help these kids grow up and take to the responsibility of being the adults they are.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
though it's a bit optimistic, i hope the students really take the their selection. i like the grass-rootsy feel of supporting open-source drm-free codecs and non-RIAA content. it's like organic music. perhaps this will open the door for a larger audience to ween themselves off of the riaa koolaid. most of you are complaining it doesn't have enough "popular" music. maybe this can change what is "popular". longshot, but post like "it's not itunes, it sucks" and "it doesn't have britney spears, it sucks" is not going to help us break riaa monopoly. for all the M$ bashing that goes on here, it's amazing to read "everyone uses ipod/itunes, just use that". i would have expected more support for ogg and flac than for itunes on an open source friendly site.
When the RIAA comes along and alleges 'inducement' to copyright infringement, the University can point to the fact it provides a legal download service and say "we try to discourage the students but they just ignore us."
You know, I wish they had a mod "-1 missed the point"
They provided a music service. There is no reason that must include RIAA artists because
1. RIAA won't fuck with them. What stake can they claim if their artists aren't represented (spare me the moronic RIAA conspiracies). If they REALLY wanted a music service for students, they could partner with a real one, and probably get a deal.
2. They never wanted it used anyway. The purpose of this partnership is to insulate the schools when RIAA comes for the real file sharers.
The very things you claim will kill this are the reasons it was chosen in the first place.
I Know a fair few students who enjoy listening to Dub ,Generally whilst partaking in other activities.
I think this may be them trying to reduce drug use in students.
Either that or they are trying to reduce the amount of phoney Jamaican accented people who claim to be Rastafarian( Generally having no idea what the hell the religion entails bar the smoking part)
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
After reading other comments, I actually agree with you. It looks like they are not with RIAA because they don't want to. I have nothing to say against an independent publishing effort.
I was just surprised at the implication that UC made this deal to combat piracy.
In terms of platform support, cdigix' Ctrax music offering does not seem to be too open-minded:
:-(
"(SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS)
Minimum Requirements
Use a PC that has a minimum of 128 megs of RAM and a Pentium III 650 MHz or Celeron 700 MHz processor
- Windows XP is required for Ctrax
Internet Explorer version 6. This may be downloaded from: Microsoft Internet Explorer Download
Windows Media Player Version 9. This may be downloaded from: Windows Media Player Download
Macromedia Flash Plug-in version 7.
http://www.cdigix.com/website/cdigix/faqs.asp
Kind of a closed shop...
Walter.