MP3 Format Still Gathering Momentum

PoliTech sends us over to Billboard.com for a detailed article about the coming tipping point in the music business in favor of MP3. The two biggest drivers pushing Warner and Sony BMG toward MP3 are an upcoming massive Amazon-Pepsi download giveaway and a positive move by the usually maligned Wal-Mart (according to sources): "...Wal-Mart [alerted] Warner Music Group and Sony BMG that it will pull their music files in the Windows Media Audio format from walmart.com some time between mid-December and mid-January, if the labels haven't yet provided the music in MP3 format."

Comments

Funny how

[SamP2]

The same people who bash the MP3 format in every possible reasonable and unreasonable way when it is compared to .ogg or similar "free culture" formats, also unconditionally praise it when it is pitted against the evil M$s WMA or other DRM. Which is fine when the qualities discussed are precisely freedom-related, but when people 180 their views of objective technical qualities depending on who the adversary is, that is just plain hypocritical.

So is MP3 good or evil? Make up your mind already.

Re:6) Nope

[Erris]

Ugh, that trollish imposter again. It's nice of you to link to the rest of my comments here, because I say something a little different in all of them, but I'm amazed by the following:

Since that never actually came to pass, your theory that "M$" is somehow responsible for the lack of Ogg support in media players (as opposed to, say, the sheer inertia of MP3) is somehow hard to believe.

No reasonable person could conclude that. M$ was caught in a single jurisdiction but NOTHING happened to them and they got away with it. They did not even get caught elsewhere and all the music players were made by the same companies with the same outrageous licensing terms from M$. I've already dealt with FUD about technical issues and costs in other threads. I'm sure you have read them already and have to thank you for pointing people to them. It saves me further effort dealing with your bullshit.