gregory house
philosopher-in-chief
Linux4U, in its September 2007 issue, has an article on Magnatune (http.www.magnatune.org). This was the first time I heard of it. Basically, they are a company which license music under the creative commons license (one of the permutations) and allow you to listen to music. If you decide to buy, you can download DRM-free music in a variety of formats (mp3, flac, ogg-vorbis, aac etc). So I went to their website to see how this works.
I thought I would be able to download some mp3s (I prefer flac, but mp3s are fine) that I could listen to at leisure. Unfortunately, they only stream music. A quick firefox plugin search led me to m3u ripper which does not work on the site. So, as of now, I have abandoned the idea of visiting the website.
I googled for info on why they would not allow people to download mp3s and found this article - Linux.com :: Magnatune: We're not as evil as we could be.
There is not too much difference between the major record labels and this one, is there? Yes, they allow you to listen to streamed music, and entire albums at that. And they sell you DRM-free music. What else does one want?
A few things. I would like to download and listen to the songs on a device of my choice. The reason behind this is, the computer that I use to access the internet is meant for that purpose only. It has no audio capabilities. So streaming is useless as far as I am concerned. I do all my listening on my development machine. And I can't do that in this case. Of course, if I search hard enough, I will find a software that will let me download the songs from the playlist. But I neither have the time nor the inclination to jump through hoops.
It is a good concept and deserves a chance. But unless they allow people to download the music and try it, and not pay for it if they don't want to, there is no point talking about creative commons licensing.
I thought I would be able to download some mp3s (I prefer flac, but mp3s are fine) that I could listen to at leisure. Unfortunately, they only stream music. A quick firefox plugin search led me to m3u ripper which does not work on the site. So, as of now, I have abandoned the idea of visiting the website.
I googled for info on why they would not allow people to download mp3s and found this article - Linux.com :: Magnatune: We're not as evil as we could be.
There is not too much difference between the major record labels and this one, is there? Yes, they allow you to listen to streamed music, and entire albums at that. And they sell you DRM-free music. What else does one want?
A few things. I would like to download and listen to the songs on a device of my choice. The reason behind this is, the computer that I use to access the internet is meant for that purpose only. It has no audio capabilities. So streaming is useless as far as I am concerned. I do all my listening on my development machine. And I can't do that in this case. Of course, if I search hard enough, I will find a software that will let me download the songs from the playlist. But I neither have the time nor the inclination to jump through hoops.
It is a good concept and deserves a chance. But unless they allow people to download the music and try it, and not pay for it if they don't want to, there is no point talking about creative commons licensing.
