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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.
Although I dislike Winamp for it's complexity, I did thoroughly enjoy his simplistic (and very well designed) homepage called "smudges of wisdom."
He seems to be an interesting fellow with odd musical tastes: Also interesting is that he goes through a list of decent books, some of which I'm familiar with. The best part about them is that they aren't at all the typical programming books you'd expect.
My work here is dung.
Source code.
(Disclaimer: I'm pro-open-source. But, seriously, how many "music fans" (of the sorts who presently tote about iPods) would even know what source code is, much less give a crap about it? They Just Want It To Work(TM), man.
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
...the same overwhelming success as Ogg. And for the same reasons.
Unless it syncs with my iPod, I really don't have much use for it. Honestly, that's where my music listening is done, not in my office at my computer...
It can connect to classes of service that haven't been invented yet? Impressive. I shall go away and ponder the transdimensional time-travelling inplications of this statement. Over a large brandy.
Cheers,
Ian
Only on slashdot can iTunes be equalled to Windows Media Player...
Get your facts straight: 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.
iTunes is a player/ripped/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).
it's always nice to see someone doing what's been done before, only prettier, with a GPL, no support and random crashes.
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.
Is there a SongSomething extension to rename this program? I prefer Songfox to Songbird...
Go, and never darken my towels again! -- Rufus
Which what what?
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.
As far as I know, and I may be wrong here, iTunes will play standard mp3's. At least mine does. So what would the "...a great alternative to the DRM ridden iTunes..." gain you? I would rather have a player that can play drm'd songs, if I were forced to play a few, and still be able to play standard mp3's.
While this program may be a great alternative to the DRM ridden iTunes and Windows Media Player platforms
So what, are they going to offer the same content without DRM? Think not. How does DRM play in here? If iTMS has DRM it's because the copyright holder has agreed to allow iTMS to distribute content based on the DRM. Being OS isn't going to help this new system out in that regard. Now they may cater to those who are searching for content that is not DRM'ed, but that's content.
Source code.
Well - thats pretty much answered in the article:How many people write extensions for firefox? Not many, but how many people enjoy said extensions?
The source being available mightent directly benefit most people who use an open source program, but they sure as hell benefit from others having access to the source....
My pics.
...Nice troll.
.mp3's and CD rips are still DRM free in both iTunes or WMP.
Last I checked my
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().
How exactly is iTunes "DRM ridden"? Here's my take on iTunes: it's free, it's got a decent feature set, and it's easy to use. Other than if you need to run it on an unsupported OS, what's the problem? The only DRM is for songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store, and even that DRM is pretty non-invasive. If you don't want Apple's DRM (queue whining about not being able to play iTMS music on non-iPod MP3 players), just get your music elsewhere. Rip it from CD into numerous formats with pretty solid codecs. Buy standard MP3s from some place like allofmp3.com. Download it (legally, of course) from the 'net.
Honestly, if the software "just works", doesn't force DRM on you, and has the features you need, why spend the time making a product that just attempts to do the same thing? Are there compelling new features in SongBird that iTunes doesn't provide? The way I see it, iTunes is a very nice, free digital audio player that also has the ability to sync with an iPod and use iTMS if you want to take advantage of those things. If you don't want to use iTMS music or an iPod, then just don't use those features.
That being said, hopefully SongBird will have some great innovations that'll push other software makers ahead as well... I'm just not sure there's any more to it than "we don't have DRM and you can see our sourcecode - yay!" and if the developers stick with that mindset it'll never go anywhere.
The recent 6.02 release of iTunes won't install anymore on my Windows machine and it corrupted my old version of iTunes. I am iTuneless as of this moment so I will give it a try....
But alas, Songbird is garish, slow, and overwrought with features. Trying to be everything to everyone by embedding web browsing and access to many alternative music stores and sponsored websites, Songbird misses out on the point of being an iTunes replacement, simplicity. Like most open source projects, people have to learn where to draw the line between duplicating someone else's success to doing too much to surpass it.
Perhaps being a proof-of-concept product they will tweak it and streamline it enough to be both usable and simple. But I don't think we need a Mozilla based web browser that builds multimedia playback into it. Nice try. Should have just made a FireFox extension.
I guess I am forced trying to get iTunes running again, in the short while at least.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
I'm calling FUD and misinformation on this one. I've been using iTunes since it's inception, I've got well over 10,000 songs loaded, and *none* of them are encumbered with DRM. Why? Because I ripped them from CDs I own. And you know what? *You* can do that too! Look, no DRM!
It's just bad journalism to call iTunes "DRM ridden".
Go find yourself a new job, because accurate reporting is not your forte.
I'm late to the game of personal MP3 players and what can and can't be played on any given device. The Songbird site is down, but i did read the article. So my main question is:
Can I use this new app to purchase music from any site that supports purchases (i.e. Apple, Napster, Rhapsody, Amazon, etc...), get a plain old MP3 file, which I can then play/burn onto any device I choose?
I had some experience with Rhapsody a few months back, but it seemed to be in some proprietary format, and I could only use their software to play/transfer/burn the file to my media. Will Songbird get around all of that?
thx in advance,
jeff
thx,
jeff
In re: 'from the free-as-a-bird dept."
Attn: Robert Commander Taco Malda, Jeff Hemos Bates
I represent the law firm of Dewey, Cheatham and Howe, on retainer for Apple Corps d.b.a. Apple Records. Our clients hold international legal and commercial rights to the recording Free As A Bird.
Your unauthorized distribution of lyrics to this performance constitute, at a minimum, a violation of U.S.C. 666-69-3117 and of the provisions on distribution laid out in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). You are thus ordered to cease and desist the distribution of these and any other Apple Corps lyrics in your "dept" headings. Our firm has not ruled out further legal action to enforce our clients' Intellectual Property rights.
Signed,
Robert Cheatham, Esq.
Dewey, Cheatham and Howe
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Yes! Another open-source copy of a commercial app!
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.
Yet the market has held tightly to iTunes despite the numerous alternatives that have entered the market.
DRM-free.
I see no such assurances, nor do I see the ability to purchase unencumbered music from Amazon. The player merely connects to the store. It doesn't do anything else that I can see. And many of those stores are evil in of themselves. Using the BeatPort example, you MUST have Flash installed and enabled to use the site. How does that help Linux users and Windows users who want to use unencumbered software?
There's a lot of noise here, but very few facts, IMHO. Songbird would be a nice step in improving media players on Linux (assuming a version is ever produced), but as far as I can see, it's not the revolution that you're making it out to be.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Definitely -- I wish I had musical ability, because I'd give it away free to everyone.
Apple Support. They're pretty detailed.
Because the iTunes team doesn't want to sift through a bunch of feedback emails that say "Where's the Ogg support?" or "Why doesn't my random, esoteric GTK app magically work with some random archaic feature of iTunes?" or "RMS SAYS U R EVIL BECUZ U DONT RELEASE UR SOURCE CODES AS GEE PEE ELL."
"Sufferin' succotash."
If songbird keeps a clean and easily understood interface - not descending into the usual "intuitive... if you're a psychotic fanboy!" interface hell that has claimed so many media players - it will grow marketshare, which in turn could help reduce the barriers to Ogg adoption by artists.
The iPod has a simple, easily learned interface. Thus iTunes prospers. From where I'm sitting, the iPod has no features that are as big a selling point as its sweet ergonomic UI - discounting the UI, my Pez MP3 player is actually much cooler.
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
A clone of iTunes which doesn't interoperate with the iTunes store, play any of my DRM'd music, work on a Mac or under Linux, or interface with my iPod. Its only selling point being vaporware plugins.
Bzzt! Next!
I'm not wrong. You haven't thought about it hard enough.
An open source media player that organizes music and looks like Itunes is all well and good.... But how does it sound? Is the EQ any good? You can organize music with most players out there...whether it sounds good is a bit more important than whether it can use services that don't even exist yet.
Requiem
...what kind of bird doesn't fly? A jail bird - and that is just what all of you heathens with your new fangled technology are going to be if you keep abusing it. I know this for the RIAA tells me so.
The point of this seems to me to be that it will let you buy from more than one store, it does not force bought music to have DRM. In other words it offers choice and freedom. iTunes restricts you.
It is designed to be extensible. Hopefully there will be an iTunes plugin in the future, it also offers people a chance to use music differently.
It is only release 0.1. I'm sure iPod etc syncing is in the works.
Perhaps it will flop, but at least people tried.
If SongBird could replicate the iTMS experience of looking for cinema, music, video and podcast as media from anywhere on the 'net that would encode their music as an XML enclosure in addition to the actual media file, DRMed or not, it could be a front-end and generate business for ANY store.
Just by replicating the MP3 tags, you would be able to set up a store. Of course processing of payments would be something your store would actually have to do.
This means any indy artists with CD burners, label printers and PayPal accounts just got themselves a way in as powerful as the 'majors' with their DRMed content and their current lock on the market.
As for the 'major' labels, it means that they can charge as much as they want for their music, which is a major sticking point with Apple.
Hopefully it will be a humbling experience when they suddenly have competition on a equal footing from the very artists that they dismiss as 'non commercial' (meaning that they can't generate enough of a revenue stream from to support their continuing mismanagement.)
But it won't be more that a commercial outlet until the customers/consumers can contract for the content they want.
The 'pull-side' of the market place is currently ignored and grossly underserved by a 'push-side' economy; despite staging protests against the distribution channels which cancel the contracts for the content consumers/viewers/listeners want because they figure that they can maximize profit with some other content.
As long as the 'push-side' can push aside the considerations of the 'pull-side' we're never going to get what we want.
Business, not artistic, considerations will always interfere and bring us whatever crap they hope we'll fall for.
Don't like a Brittany Spears?
Your alternatives are whatever else somebody produced, through the SAME system that produced a Brittany Spears, instead of what YOU need/want to hear.
Don't like the latest bal, uh, block-buster?
Your alternatives are whatever else somebody produced, through the SAME system that produced the latest drek, instead of what YOU need/want to see.
Don't like the latest Danielle Steele?
Your alternatives are whatever else somebody produced, through the SAME system that produced the latest Danielle Steele, instead of what YOU need/want to read about.
THAT is when the revolution will happen.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I have permission from a performer, in writing, to put some of his music on my htp:///msb.libsyn.com podcast media site but the album I just bought/downloaded from the ITMS doesn't let me convert it from a protected AAC to an MP3.
Guess what podcasting needs? Right.
I'm going to have to use someone else or he's going to have to send me the original files as an MP3 (Thank Heavens nobody records to tape anymore.)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
When I maximize the player it covers the taskbar, even though I have the taskbar immobile and set to stay on top of other windows. It also takes an incredibly long time to read all of the metadata of my music. Granted, I have a ton of music, but it's still annoying that I've had it installed for 10 minutes and I still can't find half of my music in it. I also can't figure out how to edit track metadata. The edit button doesn't seem to do anything, and it has all of my various artist albums split up by the individual track artists.
Overall, so far I can't say that its going to get me to switch from foobar2000 anytime soon, particularly since I haven't been able yet to verify whether it supports musepack files.
I have a nice speaker system setup with my Linux box. There's no way to play any of my $250 worth of iTMS-purchased songs on that machine. None. All of the files bought from iTMS are DRM-locked and can only be played on machines which are authorized through iTMS.
Unfortunately, there is no software for Linux which is capable of doing that. DVD Jon had released FairPlay and some other tools which could unlock those files, but Apple broke those utilities with the release of iTunes 6. You have to log into iTMS with a computer to generate a key for the computer. The tools can no longer log into iTMS, and so they cannot generate a key for my Linux box.
I can't copy the files off my Mac to my Linux box, I can't copy the files from my iPod to my Linux box, I can't copy the files to any machine that can't run iTunes, including any other portable music players made by companies other than Apple.
Sure, the several thousands songs I ripped from CDs to MP3s are fine and I can move those around, but at my current rate I would soon surpass the number of MP3s I have with the number of DRM-encumbered MP4s I have. (I don't plan on purchasing so much as one more song from iTMS until there is a way to transfer them to my other computers and devices.)
iTunes is fantastic if all you want to do is rip CDs onto your Mac or sync songs to an iPod. My iPod is breaking down (and is well out of warranty) and any replacement I buy will definitely not be an iPod, and my only Mac is an old iBook with horrendous sound ouput quality compared to the sound system on my Linux desktop. I've had to resort to burning my MP4s to CD (a lot of CDs), re-ripping them into Vorbis on the Linux box (losing some sound quality due to encoding the music twice), and then manually retagging all of the songs since the meta-data is lost when burned to CD. Whatever convenience I gained by using iTMS has now been lost.
iTunes *IS* DRM encumbered. Well, more accurately, iTMS is. [b]And that's what Songbird is competing with - the music store, not the music manager.[/b]
That would mean that if you get new hardware you could still use the music. In fact there IS a limited time period. It is limited to the life of the perticular product you original tied the song to.
Do you even check into this nonsense you're spouting?
You can play your songs on up to 3 computers concurrently. If you get a new computer, you can "de-authorize" an old one and then authorize the new one through a simple menu command. Do it as many times as you get new hardware. You can also play them on unlimited iPods, and burn them to CDs to play anywhere.
Sure, it's still somewhat annoying, but far better than any other legal download service.
"OMGDRMWTFBBQ!!!"
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
From other slashdot users, I've been alerted to foobar2000, the light quinnware, a crude hack of XMMS2 for Windows, etc. Just check out this site if you want to look up new lightweight players. There are lists everywhere.
Honestly, I was afraid that Songbird would be too bloated--trying to do everything for everyone a la Winamp.
I do not agree with your assessment of Winamp being the lightest audio player. It probably has Windows Media Player beat but I use better alternatives in alternate operating systems.
My work here is dung.
Everyone to whom I have spoken has said that iTunes and an iPod will only let you sync to one computer at a time. To me, that sounds like DRM. I'm kind of astounded that Mac fans would not recognize this. Maybe these Mac fans are too much in love with an image projected by Apple's prodigious marketing team, and are not seeing reality.
3 4
There are other open source options, such as this Oboe service from MP3tunes, which was slashdotted here by Scuttlemonkey. This service will allow you to stream and sync to any computer with the open source Oboe software package, and the download is free, although the service is not free as in beer, but costs $40.00 USD per year:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/23/16432
Chiggers writes to tell us that Mad Penguin has an interesting look at Oboe, the new music service from MP3Tunes. For a monthly fee Oboe allows you unlimited space to create a cross-platform music playlist available anywhere you have an internet connection via their AJAX-enabled GUI. The audio player still needs a little work but overall it is an interesting idea.
The more interesting question is:
Do kids give a damn about the independent labels or DRM free muaic?
It's on top in your mind, but let's look at the truth. Even against mp3, Ogg is not impressive. Between lame -v5 and Vorbis -q 4.25, the lame files came out significantly smaller on all but a handful of cases...in fact, it averaged significantly larger filesizes than all other codecs tested.
So, significantly larger files, and in raw numbers it does slightly better, but statisically it ties with all other codecs worth mentioning. That's hardly a codec that's "on top".
THIS IS WHY Vorbis has already lost. Other vendors stepped up to produce the next-generation of codecs well before Vorbis became polished, and they made them very much free (as in beer). Most people don't care that Vorbis is also free (as in speech).
Me, I just stick with mp3, works everywhere, and Lame just keeps getting better. Who knew mp3 had this much room for growth? It's running strong with the next-gen codecs at similar bitrates!
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.