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Songbird Flies Today
fr1kk writes to tell us that with the recent advent of a preview version for the new open source response to iTunes, Songbird, BoingBoing has taken a few minutes to interview team lead Rob Lord. While this program may be a great alternative to the DRM ridden iTunes and Windows Media Player platforms it is still only a Windows release. The good news is that by being open source that will (hopefully) not last very long. The Songbird site appears to be swamped right now, but there are several different mirrors available to download the client.
It's not just the source that's open. The program is also a convenient user interface to buy music online, not just from a single monopoly (e.g. iTunes music store) but from all sources. DRM-free. Note in the screenshot, they have an icon to buy MP3s from amazon.
Right after I opened it, I noticed the column header control, and that the popup menus look more like the Firefox ones than the Windows native ones, so I checked Songbird's directory, and yes, it appears that it is Mozilla-based.
Now, maybe that's common knowledge, but it's the first I've heard of it, and I think it's worth mentioning. Especially since talk of cross platform porting is.
I didnt see a menu for proxy settings in the app. Might be helpful for those who are at work right now.
You can add the following lines into your config.js in the Songbird directory.
pref("network.proxy.http", "type proxy here in quotes");
pref("network.proxy.http_port", YOURPROXYPORT);
pref("network.proxy.type", 1);
Of course, replace the port and proxy values, and you're in. Its based on firefox, so I just got the settings from the Firefox config and changed from user_pref() to pref().
Only on slashdot can iTunes be equalled to Windows Media Player...
OK, here we go...
Get your facts straight:
A very good idea.
files encoded from your own CDs do NOT have any DRM in them. Only tunes bought from the built-in on-line music store have DRM.
True.
iTunes is a player/ripped/jukebox/music store program.
Windows Media Player is a player/ripper/jukebox/music store program.
You DO NOT NEED to buy DRM tunes online, you do not even need an internet connection (although it comes in handy for the CDDB feature when ripping your own CDs).
Also true of Windows Media Player. Like iTunes, Windows Media Player 10 will rip your CD's to mp3, with no DRM.
Old people fall. Young people spring. Rich people summer and winter.
Here's a list of sites that sell DRM-free music by independent artists:
UseFree.org/drm
Songbird works with most if not all of these sites, and thus makes it easier than ever to break our dependency on RIAA's music and the cancerous DRM technology that it is pushing.
Get computers and accessories from Linux-friendly manufacturers
> If they did, they'd know the DRM is so invisible that most users don't even
> know it's there. I always forget it is.
I've bought plenty of albums off ITMS, and it is indeed easy to burn them to a CD and then rip that, especially when buying a whole album. When buying individual tracks, things get a bit messier, since CDEx can't lookup the metadata anymore.
But saying that the DRM is invisible is silly. I have a Roku SoundBridge, which works just fine with iTunes, except for DRM-ed tracks. None of the ITMS albums and tracks will play on the SoundBridge, unless burned and re-ripped into iTunes. And this won't ever likely change, since Apple seems to have no interest in licensing their FairPlay (ha!) DRM to third parties.
Um, not only does Apple make it a point of telling you to back up your music to other media, but they will also allow you to re-download your library (on a one-time only basis) should something catastrophic happen. I've recently lost my backups and a quick email to Apple had me downloading my purchased tracks within a day.
When ransacking a town, always remember: Pillage first and *then* burn, not the other way around.
Yes I had a friend who own an iPod, and he said the same thing: "it works with only a single computer".
However this is not totally correct. (I found out after buying my own iPod).
The summary is like this: You can manage your iPod from as many iTunes installations as your want. But in order to do this, you have to disable synchronization from Preferences window.
I know it's still a limitation, however it's not DRM related. Actually the problem is with the sync algorithm. Consider this: you add "Metallica.mp3" to PC A'a library and another unrelated "Metallica.mp3" to PC B'a library. After that you sync with PC A, then sync with PC B and then delete the mp3 on PC A and then to the both syncs again. What should happen?
This is a very difficult question, because there is not one anwser to it. So they chose the obvious solution: sync works with a single copy iTunes, however you can upload songs from as many PCs as you want if you disable sync.
(Btw, sorry my moderations will be undone, hope someone else redoes them).