Slashdot Mirror
Amazon to Open DRM-Free MP3 Music Download Store
mtnlion1 writes "Amazon.com announced it will launch a digital music store later this year offering millions of songs in the DRM-free MP3 format from more than 12,000 record labels. EMI Music's digital catalog is the latest addition to the store. Every song and album in the Amazon.com digital music store will be available exclusively in the MP3 format without digital rights management (DRM) software. Amazon's DRM-free MP3s will free customers to play their music on virtually any of their personal devices and burn songs to CDs for personal use."
But, please read those EULAs, people
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
No DRM - so this is basically deathblow to iTunes music store. DRM music just can not compete with non-DRM music. Average will see this as "hmm.. music I bought from iTunes will not play on my x device, but music I bought from Amazon store will play on all my devices.. hmm.. there is something wrong with iTunes, I will quit using it."
Here are a couple of commentaries from MP3 Newswire and Digital Music News on the deal. Needless to say, while no-DRM is certainly a step in the right direction they seem to agree that pricing also plays a big part in this picture. Amazon to Sell Full EMI Digital Catalog Without DRM http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/7002/emi-amazon .html
Resnikoff's Parting Shot: Amazon's Game
http://digitalmusicnews.com/stories/051607parting/ view
Seems like Cowon (aka iAudio) has figured these problems out. Many of their players support Ogg and FLAC. I nag them from time to time to add Matroska to the list of formats their video players support.
The difference from what I understand is that Amamzon is going MP3 only. While Apple has some stuff available in MP3, as do other services like Puretracks, they also sell mostly DRM encumbered music. Wading through all the music on these other services to find the stuff that is DRM free can be a real pain. It really sucks with 95% of the content they offer is only available with DRM. For those that are only interested in DRM Free music, a store like Amazon, or eMusic, where all the music will be DRM free is the only real solution.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
MP3s became very popular because the files were relatively small and hence, easier to download. There was a huge boom in downloaded and shared MP3s. But that was then (some 5-8 years ago), and this is now. We gots bandwidth. Why not offer the tracks in a lossless compressed formal, like FLAC? Or heck, uncompressed PCM? If I'm going to pay for the actual song, I want it in the best quality possible.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
While not all the CDs I see are cheap, I see the majority of albums in the store to be between $8 (yes, many are that cheap) and $15. For examples of prices, check out Amazon.Ca. While most of the CDs are above $11, it's not a significant amount, usually $2 or $3. So, yes $11 is way too much for a collection of digital files that probably costs them 50 cents in bandwidth to transfer to me.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
As with the MP3 format [3] , no licenses or payments are required to be able to stream or distribute content in AAC format. [4] This reason alone makes AAC a much more attractive format for distributing content, particularly streaming content (such as Internet radio).
However, a patent license is required for all manufacturers or developers of AAC codecs. [5] It is for this reason FOSS implementations such as FAAC and FAAD are distributed in source form only, in order to avoid patent infringement.
AAC requires a patent license, and thus uses proprietary technology. But contrary to popular belief, it is not the property of a single company, having been developed in a standards-making organization.
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
Because it's currently very expensive (or impossible?) to get chip decoders for OGG Vorbis, because of lack of demand.
That may have been true a few years ago, but most of the current Portable Media Players are more than capable of handling the decoding of OGG files and would be pretty trivial to add support to their players. I really think their is a more of a "politcal" reason for not supporting OGG files anymore (not sure what it is, but for some reason companies don't want OGG files catching on).
BTW: I just purchased a Sandisk Sansa e260 series player to be used with my entire collection of OGG Vorbis files - the trick is to simply install Rockbox on it to use instead of the crap firmware it comes with.
50 cents in bandwidth??? Even at S3 prices ($0.13/GB in bulk), which are surely more than they are paying, a whole album in WAV format would cost about $0.09. MP3 format will be a fraction of that. Their only real cost of distribution is the cost to run the store. Most of the money must be going directly to the record companies.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I've heard a lot about this ape and it's the reason why I'm mp3 only. Basically I've read up about ape, sounds really good, sounds interesting. However I've tried using ape which contained a japanese artist. Let's just say no player or converter worked 100 percent of the time.
.ape and .cue files as well, which if ape allows is just frightening.
I couldn't find a single way to batch these files to Mp3, I saw
As you said Mp3s are simple, small and easier to use. OGG, FLAC, and APE have annoyed me in the past and will annoy me again in the future, not because they are any worse, but because their better features come at a price of compatibility and size.
I know, hard to believe that allofmp3 can't be trusted, right?
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
They actually make it fairly clear when the source is from WAV (thus you get a good transcode) or "other" (usually 128Kbps MP3).
If you purchase based on the available information, you can usually but the best possible quality, without spending more.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
You need to get Media Monkey and set up your portable devices with custom convert-on-the-fly sync rules. It's easy - even I managed to do it. If you've got a pretty static collection, you can convert-sync to another directory. That's what I did when my wife got an ipod - converted the 80GB of FLAC to 15GB of MP3, then let her sift it down to the 8GB of her device memory by cutting out the chuncks of my collection she never listens to. She's happy with iTunes, and I rip all our CDs and just give her an MP3 copy, so there are few tears involved.
.cue, etc. and just keep the base files when I useually download from the net. I always have to go in and clean up the tags anyway - even on my own rips - since I'm particular about my genre and album-artist settings.
I used to use foobar, but it takes a bit of customization to really be useful as a full-time app, and I don't have that kind of time or patience. MM does most everything for me, and tagging is pretty easy. Version 3 is looking to be pretty cool.
APE is just another lossless. Foobar2000 is a quick and dirty way to transcode, and lossless-lossless is (naturally) lossless - so you can swap out to a new format in the future if you really decide you hate what you're using. I actually converted my whole collection with foobar once - took about 3 days, but it worked. I always delete
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?