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Google Music Store Inches Closer?
smallguy78 writes "Forbes is once again reporting on Google plans to launch its own competitor to iTunes, a Google music store. From the article: 'The music industry is broadly unhappy with the fixed pricing and lack of subscription options at the market-leading iTunes Music Store and likely to support alternative services.'" We have touched on this subject previously. This most recent report would seem to indicate the launch will happen sooner rather than later.
Emusic sells un-DRMed mp3 files. They have a broad collection of minor label bands, defunct record labels (like sun), and current indie hits.
They don't have much, if any, of current major pop music. However, they're still a worthwhile option for music downloads.
All the artists on http://www.mvine.com/ receive 50% of the after tax revenue for downloads, and all the music sold, in Ogg Vorbis and MP3 formats, is free of DRM. There are also many free music videos to download too.
You are familiar with MagnaTune? No DRM there, and they have a "Why we are not evil" link on their page.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Eh? Where the hell does iTunes get their music? It's making the record companies suffer? Using iTunes, Google Music, Rhapsody, Yahoo Music, Amazon, et al, supports the miserable music industry. It lets them think you want 'Fair' content that can only have 5 copies of. That's still being treated like a criminal, just with a bigger cell.
Buy DRM-less independent music if you want to be treated fairly.
eMusic Subcription-based, very cheap, a lot of great artists and indie labels (New Pornos, Spoon, Blackalicious, CCR, Thelonius Monk)
BLEEP A-la-carte, most electronic but has a lot of small labels, some stuff in FLAC (Warp records, Ninja Tune, One Little Indian/Bjork)
AudioLunchbox Subscription and a-la-carte, a little pricier than emusic but has some different artists (Death Cab for Cutie, The Sounds)
Calabash Mostly world and folk music (Tinariwen, reggae)
There are more. Hopefully Songbird will make it easier to access them all through a single interface.
Death and danger are my various breads and various butters.
Read the little "Legal" link on their site where they say it's all kosher according to Russian law, but they make no guarantees about your legal liabilities if you're not Russian.