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Mandriva Linux to Offer Online Music Service
dysfirkin writes "Mandriva 2006 is to be the first Linux distro to offer built in online music service. The service will compete with the likes of emusic.com for the music business of Linux users. I have not used Mindawn before, but the service is offered in Ogg Vorbis and FLAC."
and annoying auto playing video with sound!
Doesn't mention how much this will cost. I'm guessing from the text of the article that this is a pay-per-song service rather than a subscription model, but it doesn't explicitly say.
Interesting that it will support Linux, Windows and OS X - is this the only music service that can claim this kind of compatibility?
MacBook Pro. Worst name since the Bicycle
Given that they likely won't use DRM with their downloads (after all, a Linux distro doing DRM would be quickly abandoned by many of its users and be excommunicated by RMS)... that would seem to mean that the major labels would not allow their songs to be put on it, counting out the majority of popular music today.
Shame.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Another $1/song service with absolutely no selection... It would be cool that they used ogg if I were ever disposed to use it.
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
Maybe Apple will finally decide to port iTunes to Linux if they see that there's a market.
There are already similar, browser based services that allow you to download content in Ogg or MP3. The biggest reason they're not massively popular is the same reason this won't be - no 'big name' labels.
What nifty freebies will Mindawn be giving away to the lucky recipient of their billionth download?
Once again, DRM free - but no bands you've ever heard of.
I already buy CDs from my local bands (that nobody else has heard of). I just don't understand how this marketing works. In fact, I think it wont.
Crappy interface too.
TFA tries to put this up as a competing service to iTunes/Napster, but there's a pretty large gaping hole there.....content. While it looks like an interesting service, especially for people who like unsigned/indy type releases, that's not really competing with the other services. Their customers are buying mainly releases from "mainstream" sources (the big record companies). Saying that this is serious competition to iTunes is more a delusion of grandeur than a realistic statement.
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
I'm all for supporting open source and free software, but without MP3 support nobody is going to use this.
As far as being multi-platform, how hard would it be to make a service like this web-based?
I have basically stopped buying music for some time. It seems that noone wants to sell a reasonable selection of mp3/ogg music.
CD's are not practical. DRM music has no value to me.
emusic is pay-monthly. I just want to buy a few songs now and then.
The only places to find mp3/ogg's to buy with a reasonably selection are Russian sites. But I don't quite trust my credit card floating around there.
http://www.mindawn.com/news/34?PHPSESSID=109de8547 5f3274709a8bd0cb78e05d0
I'll be able to play whatever I buy in my iaudio x5 http://eng.iaudio.com/ in ogg / flag - cool
"Given that they likely won't use DRM with their downloads (after all, a Linux distro doing DRM would be quickly abandoned by many of its users and be excommunicated by RMS)... that would seem to mean that the major labels would not allow their songs to be put on it, counting out the majority of popular music today." So then they'd have to rely on selling music from among the rest of million os musicians on the planet? That's a positive in my book. Using the FLAC format means they could sell classical music, something we classical lovers hadn't considered before, since any other format previously available sucked for such hi-end purposes. Mandriva, that's a brilliant move.
>I have basically stopped buying music for some time. It seems that noone wants to sell a reasonable selection of mp3/ogg music.
You are so correct.
>CD's are not practical. DRM music has no value to me.
I still buy CD's, but the local stores are carrying less and less selection. And you are not alone in people seeing DRM music as having no value.
>The only places to find mp3/ogg's to buy with a reasonably selection are Russian sites. But I don't quite trust my credit card floating around there.
Yep- they are doing it the "right" way, too bad it is illegal because they are essentially taking money for stolen music. If there were a legal site doing what allofmp3 was doing, my wallet would start draining...
Some of you miss the point completely. Mandriva isn't after iTunes neck. It's trying to carve a niche market: That of Linux users. They add the other clients just to better their chances of profit. And the music offering not being the popular bands is no problem at all: Linux users aren't looking for gangsta rap, they have a brain, and use it.
It's also non-DRM music from independent artists.
Using allofmp3.com is illegal in almost every country. They are essentially stealing the music and then charging "customers" for stolen goods.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to just set up a nice website, buy a whole bunch of CD's and DVD's, and then sell copies of them to everyone?
BTW- In their own legal mumbo-jumbo, they practically admit it is illegal to use outside of Russia, right in their FAQ:
" [blah blah blah license this and license that...] The user bears sole responsibility for any use and distribution of all materials received from AllOFMP3.com. This responsibility is dependent on the national legislation in each user's country of residence. The Administration of AllOFMP3.com does not possess information on the laws of each particular country and is not responsible for the actions of foreign users."
Translation: allofmp3 is not illegal in Russia for Russian customers. But we know it is illegal just about everywhere else. We pretend we don't know the laws, and we place the burden on you, the customer, to not do anything illegal (like using our site) if you are outside of Russia. So don't try and blame us for doing anything wrong.
When something seems to good to be true (or "right"), then it probably is...
Fortunately, on allofmp3.com you can pay with PayPal; hence you're only giving them $10 at a time, they never see your card details. Plus, that $10 usually ends up giving you more than $10 worth of music.
Isn't Mindawn already "built in" to every OS with a browser? How are they going to "integrate" it into Mandriva? Put a bookmark to mindawn.com on the desktop?
Of all the things I'd like to see in Mandriva, this isn't it. I'd like to see them automate and decentralize the system for obtaining new and update packages. Nothing irritates or wastes my time more than having to manually resolve the urpmi BS every other week. I'm also not interested in hearing any jawflapping from linux fans about how it's just a couple of lines. They are the most annoying thing about the OS and, as an average joe home user, the very first reason I would look to some other OS. ...the lines, not the users.
Maybe you want to visit www.finetunes.de. It's german-based but it provides an english frontend. Payment is handled through Firstgate.
-DBS
Sigs suck!
Althought I couldn't get the source to compile (then again I didn't try very hard) the prebuilt binary works fine for me on Gentoo with only one minor bit of trickery. The binary is dynamically linked against libFLAC.so.6 I had to create a link to libFLAC.so.7 to fool it but other that that I had no problems getting online and downloading a demo file.
A service nobody will use. I give it a year tops.
Besides, Linux is the "indy platform" of the computer desktop world.
Linux is "counterculture" not "indy". Indy is pro-business, it just wants those business to be smaller, more creative, and more responsive to the audience. A more decentralised capitalistic system.
Hey, thats a plus..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Translation: allofmp3 is not illegal in Russia for Russian customers. But we know it is illegal just about everywhere else. We pretend we don't know the laws, and we place the burden on you, the customer, to not do anything illegal (like using our site) if you are outside of Russia. So don't try and blame us for doing anything wrong.
i ng%20Allofmp3%20legal?
You just made that up. Evidence please?
Try this:
http://www.museekster.com/allofmp3faq.htm#Is%20us
Title 17 Chapter 6 Sec. 602 of the U.S. Code covers "Infringing importation of copies or phonorecords". You can find this title here
Subsection (a) tells us:
*
"Importation into the United States, without the authority of the owner of copyright under this title, of copies or phonorecords of a work that have been acquired outside the United States is an infringement of the exclusive right to distribute copies or phonorecords under section 106, actionable under section 501."
So it's illegal you may think. But take a close look at sub (a)(2):
*
"This subsection does not apply to importation, for the private use of the importer and not for distribution, by any person with respect to no more than one copy or phonorecord of any one work at any one time, or by any person arriving from outside the United States with respect to copies or phonorecords forming part of such person's personal baggage;"
If MP3's, OGG's etc are in fact considered phonorecords, U.S. citizens can legally buy these as long if they are for private use and not for distribution. If MP3s, OGG's etc. are not considered phonorecords, no import laws apply. The sections of digital audio recording and sound recording have no mention of importation.
So in layman's terms the bottom line of this discussion is:
*
Downloading from Allofmp3 is legal for U.S. Citizens, as long as the files are for private use and not for distribution.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
That would be because they're the incumbent monopoly in the desktop operating system market. Much as we (Mandriva) would like to be, we're not.
I don't know other European countries' laws but in Czech Republic allofmp3 is definitely legal - you're allowed to download any audio/video you want (even from "illegal" source) but you must not share the data with someone else. I call this a good law.
Mandrake starting a music service is harmful because all the artists who want to distribute without DRM have to sign up for yet another service if they want Mandrake's customers to easily see their music. If Mandrake really cared about promoting online music distribution in a way that is acceptable to their customers they would partner with one of the existing services. They could exchange free promotion of the service for a commitment by the service provider not to change the terms of the service. Unfortunately, that sort of press release would produce less investor interest than this one.
Having said that, I find the hypocrisy of certain slashdot reader to be quite entertaining.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
And if you must have major label stuff, Real Rhapsody has a beta version FireFox plugin that allows you to use the entire jukebox service. Given, you can't download and keep it, but at least you can listen to the service, and Real is doing something for us Linux users.
If there's no God, Why do people keep asking Him to bless and damn everything?
>You just made that up. Evidence please? Try this:
A lot of that site looks just about as "made up" to me...
"Please note - This is in no way a legal advice."
"If they don't have legitimate distribution licenses then they obviously have no right to distribute at any price."
"This subsection does not apply to importation, for the private use of the importer and not for distribution, by any person with respect to no more than one copy or phonorecord of any one work at any one time, or by any person arriving from outside the United States with respect to copies or phonorecords forming part of such person's personal baggage;"
Clearly that is for a few physical albums bought IN THE OTHER COUNTRY. And BROUGHT WITH THEM physically when returning from a trip. And the site uses that as justification in law that it is legal???? HA!
I would hardly call a discussion forum by laypeople on "WWW.MUSEEKSTER.COM", a foriegn site, as a source of reliable interpretation of US and International law. Nor would I consider it "evidence" in support of the legality of the Russian music sites.
Besides if it were clearly legal to use in the US, then there is no way sites like itunes, rhapsody, or napster could exist. Look, I WANT it to be legal, really I do, but based on everything I have seen, I genuinely don't think it is. If someone can prove it is legal, I will be very happy, indeed.
Not at all, the music is aquired legally in the country the site is hosted in. Therefore in the US it is legal to purchase their music once aquired. If I had to break the encryption on a movie to play it on other players and allow second hand sale in Russia, did you think the disc would magically become illegal when I entered the US? Of course not, the laws of the country I was in at the time prevail. I can even sell my now unencrypted disc in the US since second hand sales are legal here, just not breaking the encryption (which I did in Russia).
Go to Amsterdam and smoke some hash, you won't be arrested when you step back on american soil for doing so.
Many banks allow you to generate one time use CC numbers. I know MBNA does. I wouldn't trust 'em with my real card either.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
"Clearly that is for a few physical albums bought IN THE OTHER COUNTRY. And BROUGHT WITH THEM physically when returning from a trip. And the site uses that as justification in law that it is legal???? HA!"
Right and since that law is the only thing that would make purchasing from allofmp3.com illegal in the first place... Remember you are buying music from a vendor who legally aquired the music under the laws of their nation and is distributing it in compliance with those laws. The default is of course that anything that occurs on foreign soil is soley subject to the laws of THAT nation and subsequent actions occur subject to the laws of the nation in question.
"I would hardly call a discussion forum by laypeople on "WWW.MUSEEKSTER.COM", a foriegn site, as a source of reliable interpretation of US and International law. Nor would I consider it "evidence" in support of the legality of the Russian music sites."
You are attacking the arguer instead of the argument. Any basic logic course will advise you that this invalidates your own argument. If Hitler says that milk contains calcium it does not make the statement any more or less true. If mp3piratez.com says that x is legal because of y, it is no more or less true than if the president of the RIAA said it.
If you prefer a different source, here is the C-NET article the GP's information originally came from. http://reviews.cnet.com/5208-7597_7-0.html?forumID =41&messageID=1708660&threadID=153671
Look fool, go read up on US copyright law. The relevant sections were already quoted to you, but if you don't trust it, then go find it yourself. Either it counts as importation of a phonograph and is legal for personal use, or else it is not classified as anything specific and basic copyright clauses ould apply and is legal.
The defining things are that http://allofmp3.com/ is technically legal in Russia. This has already been proven in a Russian court of law. It has not been proven legal in a US court of law, but probably will not go there as the RIAA would not want to risk it. Besides there is a barrier in place that will prevent the average Joe from using allofmp3.com.
Russia is notorious for hosting credit card scams. I took the precaution of generating a temporary card number and still need to personally tell my bank to authorize the transaction. That would be enough to scare away many users.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
If Spiggy Topes and the Turds were on Mindawn, I might be interested. But alas they aren't. I guess that as a "popular singing group" they could be too expensive for your average Linux user. Like Spinal Tap, really. I'm afraid that Mindawn doesn't conform to my free noise principles if they are not prepared to support the Turds or the Taps, and so I won't be using the service on moral grounds. However, I might make an exception if Mindawn invited RMS to make a two-hour speech at their billionth-download party which can surely be only a short time away.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
>You are attacking the arguer instead of the argument.
No, no, no... I am not "attacking" anyone.
But yes, it is perfectly valid to question something from unusual sources. Would you trust just any website with some medical info on it as much as a well-known medical journal? Especially when the website or its users have particular interest in the truth being "one way".
I wouldn't trust RIAA saying allofmp3 is illegal anymore than I would trust "museekster" posters saying it IS legal. I would be more inclined to belive a court's interpretation, but I don't think it has been tested yet. So, it is reasonable to assume it is illegal based on common sense and what has and has not been validated as legal or not-legal already.
Certainly, it is a safer assumption. I will admit I was too assertive in other postings, declaring it just "illegal", which I should have qualified it as "probably illegal", or "likely illegal" (in the context of U.S. users). Sorry.
This is a revolting development - they're obviously subversives trying to torpedo Slashot.
A (maybe) non-DRM music system;
A non-Apple music system;
A non-MS music system;
A music system that supports Ogg and FLAC.
Nothing left to talk about. *sniff* Cue crickets.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
>Look fool,
"Fool"? Oh my, that lends credibility to your position...
>The relevant sections were already quoted to you, but if you don't trust it, then go find it yourself.
Snips of code, not necessarily in context, and with wildly different possible interpretation, are not proof of anything either way.
>The defining things are that http://allofmp3.com/ is technically legal in Russia.
Nobody in this thread has questioned the legality of allofmp3 to exist in Russia for Russian citizens.
>but probably will not go there as the RIAA would not want to risk it.
Yes, that is an interesting situation the RIAA is faced with.
>Russia is notorious for hosting credit card scams. I took the precaution of generating a temporary card number and still need to personally tell my bank to authorize the transaction. That would be enough to scare away many users.
Looks like using paypal would be even easier and safer, since each transaction has to be approved anyway.
Ogg Vorbis is a LOSSY format. It doesn't matter WHAT bitrate you encode at or what your variable bitrate range is. It is LOSSY meaning that it LOSES (sic). Vorbis is akin to the old wire recorders of the 60s that were the scourge of audiophiles like myself.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Vile heathen!!! If you don't support Ogg Vorbis then you obviously support one of the false compression formats like MP3, WMA or AAC!!! There is only one TRUE LOSSY format and that is Ogg Vorbis. Those who do not accept the word of Xiph shall perish in the flames of WMA ear grinding hell! Please note: I do not condone any attacks on foreign embassies in the name of Ogg Vorbis.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Since the Czech Republic is now part of the European Union I would not bet much money on this. Especially not on the "even from illegal source" part.
They've been in the game longer then just about anyone. Changed hands about half a dozen times and still offer fair (I pay $19.95 for 90 tracks a month, DRM free and mine to keep, play, etc forever). While I appreciate sites like Bleep they are somewhat limited in their scope (which can be a good thing) and E/M's cataloge is big enough that I end up finding a lot of music I wouldn't have found otherwise. For the big bands allofmp3.com is still a pretty good bet (not so much my thing, but good to fall back on) and they have a nice new iTunes-like (Windows) application that makes finding and buying music dangerously easy. Of course if your a 'believer' you can't fail to mention Magnatune for being probably the most moralistically upstanding label/service going. But their catalog hurts, probably proportionally.
I'll still fall back on iTune's if I have to, but the trouble of the DRM and their pricing make them my last choice. I'd love to see Last.fm do something other then partner with amazon.com. I'm too impatient to order music I just fell in love with when 90% of the time I don't have to.
Quack, quack.
Downloading music (from anywhere, foreign or domestic) isn't importation, so 602 does not apply. Even if 602 did apply, you would not have an exemption under 602(a)(2) because of 602(b).
Importation is the act of taking copies or phonorecords across a border. Look at the definitions of "copy" and "phonorecord" in section 101. Copies are "material objects [...] in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device." Copies are real, physical things. Copies are not broadcasts or transmissions. When you have a song on a CD, the CD is the copy. When you have a song on a hard drive, or in RAM, the hard drive (or the RAM) is the copy.
When you download from allofmp3.com, or anywhere else, you're not transporting an actual copy, in tact. This is obvious because the copy is a physical thing: the copy of the song is the disk on which allofmp3 stores it. They didn't send you their disk. So, what happened? You made a copy of the song, and the new copy is the song fixed in your disk.
So you didn't import the song. You reproduced it. Reproducing a copyrighted song without permission of the copyright holder, or an applicable exemption, infringes the copyright holder's reproduction rights. Just because allofmp3 has the right to make those songs available to you under Russian law, does not mean you are authorized under US law to make your own copies, which is what you're doing when you download music from them.
For instance, let's say that merely "making available" does not infringe copyright. So, I put up a directory on a public webserver filled with music I bought from emusic.com or somewhere else. I may have a perfect legal right to place those songs online, merely doing so isn't distributing them for instance, but you still don't have a legal right to download them. It is no different with allofmp3.
Now, in Canada, in constrast, it is probably legal to use allofmp3.com. The private copying provisions of the Copyright Act do not not require that private copies be made from legitimate or authorized sources, merely that they are made for personal use and that they are made onto a recording medium that isn't prescribed.
Life after capitalism? The participatory economics project
I was looking at them just the other day. Too bad it's MP3 only (and some FLAC). I've decided long ago that even though I'm not actively deleting the MP3s I do have, I'm not adding any new music in a patented format and I'm sure as hell not gonna pay for the "priviledge". It just wouldn't be right.
Spine World
I agree with everybody who says that the selection is lousy. I'm a true indie-music geek (and proudly so) but none of my favorite unknown/lesser-known bands were in there. NONE!! I searched for more than a dozen bands ranging from tiny Los Angeles groups to National headliners (like Pinback and Belle and Sebastian). Not a single one came up! So obviously this is of no interest except that...
..except that it is an interesting business model for the online music industry:
-It's the first time I see a service offering lossless downloads. This is valuable for those of us with real stereo equipment in their living rooms (I find mp3s sound a little "empty")
-pay-per-minute of music downloaded pricing. That's interesting because it annoys me when I have to pay the same price for a 30 second song as a 10 minute song when I am trying to get a full album. FYI:
0.99 per 10 minutes of lossy compression (Ogg Vorbis format) (each 10 minutes in length is another $0.99)
$1.24 per 10 minutes of lossless compression (FLAC format)
$6.99 per album for lossy compression (Ogg Vorbis format)
$8.99 per album for lossless compression (FLAC format)
So note that this is NOT a 99c/track type service as has been mentioned above.
Oliver / http://www.treasuretunes.com/
Got a question that the allofmp3 site doesn't answer, since a lot of users are probably in this thread... are the tracks they sell tagged? They list insertion of id3 tags as a feature of their Windows front end so it makes one wonder. If I have to tag everything manually it would certainly be a reason NOT to use them.
Democrat delenda est
I'm far from major-label only - I've been a subscriber to emusic for, um, 6 years next month minus the one year they had kicked me off for d/ling too much before switching to the limited subscription model.
... 1000 albums for a music service? Emusic has a relatively weak selection, and it has 102939 albums.
But Mindawn seems to have a bit over 1000 albums in ogg, including duplicates, total. (Note that they list ogg and flac albums seperately). That's just
">Good luck. How many labels are going to allow their music to be sold in a DRM-unencumbered format?
t ml
Probably none"
Actually, it's closer to 18560 labels acording to what's available on emusic.com.
http://www.emusic.com/browse/0/l/-dlm/l/0-0/0/0.h
Since Mandriva is French and thus almost European, maybe they will have a decent selection of music? I mean, I'm fairly standard and mainly listen to rock with the odd goth / goth-metal band thrown in, and I have a seriously hard time finding music I like on itunes. It's all r&b, rap, hip-hop and other stuff which barely qualify as music in my ears...
"" How about taking the safety labels off everything, and let the stupidity-problem solve itself? """
No, this law is still valid. This law doesn't distinguish between legal source (shop) and illegal source (whatever). License for music/movie distribution is problem of the "source" not yours as long as you don't share the downloaded data.
It had bloody well better. Whenever I buy something, I do so because the product or service is worth more (at least to me) than the money I paid for it. If the product or service was worth less to me than the price asked for it, why, then I won't buy it.
In buying something, I am effectively declaring that I would rather have this product or service than the money, or any of the vast range of other things I could have had for that money.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Dude, you have something really messed up on your system if you are having choppy MP3 playback under Linux on that system. I just finished installing (last night) a "new" machine for my wife, to replace her Win98 POS box. It is running a stock install of Mandrake 10.1, using a 366 MHz Celeron, 384 megs of SDRAM, 6.4 gig IDE drive. Basically a bunch of "scrap" I had in my shop. Other than KDE feeling a tad "laggy" (I might tune it down on effects if she complains), it plays MP3s perfectly off the network server. I can't even say I tuned the drive using hdparm yet...
You didn't give many details about your system, but I doubt the problem is your Linux install, or the hardware (unless something really funky is going on). I have managed in the past to get MP3 playback running on a AMD 586/133 (you know the one - the funky "overclocked" 486 Pentium-beater chip that AMD made in the late-1990s - excellent CPU) w/16 meg RAM under DOS (it could barely do this - but it did work). If that can be done, then your system should have no problems.
If you are stream the MP3 from a CD-ROM, check the hdparm settings for the drive (make sure DMA, etc is on - plenty of docs out there on this - BTW, this is a good thing to check for the hard drive device as well). Also, make sure the driver is 100% correct for the soundcard chipset in the system - sometimes the auto-installer on distros pick the wrong driver (or a generic Soundblaster driver) for the chipset, even when the driver for the chipset is available. Make sure your swap partition is big enough. You sound like you should have enough RAM for such a use, but if you are running KDE as your WM, that might be a little low. Something else to try is installing a command line MP3 playback util and try seeing how well that plays things under X vs dropping out of X and to the command line. Also, make sure there isn't any IRQ conflicts between the soundcard/system and the rest of the box.
I am sure there are several other things that I am missing here, but the ones I listed are the first ones I would look into. The system you describe should be more than capable of doing what you need to do...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon