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Mandriva Linux to Offer Online Music Service

Posted by CowboyNeal on Sat Feb 25, 2006 11:47 AM
from the rockin'-penguins dept.
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."
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  • 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?

  • DRM (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DaHat (247651) on Saturday February 25 2006, @11:59AM (#14800266) Homepage
    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.
  • Another $1/song service with absolutely no selection... It would be cool that they used ogg if I were ever disposed to use it.
  • Maybe... (Score:2, Interesting)

    Maybe Apple will finally decide to port iTunes to Linux if they see that there's a market.
  • 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.
  • by whitespiral (941984) on Saturday February 25 2006, @12:45PM (#14800445)
    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.
  • by One Louder (595430) on Saturday February 25 2006, @12:45PM (#14800446)
    Linspire has offered a music store (MP3tunes) in their Lsongs [lsongs.com] music client since last year.

    It's also non-DRM music from independent artists.

  • by jpellino (202698) on Saturday February 25 2006, @03:13PM (#14801003)
    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.
          • The Shit/Size ratio is exactly how "better" is defined in this argument.

            Once you get up to around 256kbps there's no huge difference between any of them -- the reason OGG/WMA/AAC are considered "better" is because you can get away with a 128Kps or less file in some circumstances.
        • 602 doesn't apply (Score:4, Interesting)

          by bacchusrx (317059) on Saturday February 25 2006, @04:37PM (#14801357)
          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.