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Mandriva Linux to Offer Online Music Service 184

Posted by CowboyNeal 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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Mandriva Linux to Offer Online Music Service More

Mandriva Linux to Offer Online Music Service

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  • Incredibly annoying popup thingy alert! (Score:4, Informative)

    by onebuttonmouse ( 733011 ) <obm@stocksy.co.uk> on Saturday February 25, 2006 @11:58AM (#14800264) Homepage

    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)
    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.

    • Re:DRM (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      True, but on the other hand, if an artist happens to make it big with this service, perhaps it might send a message of some sort. One really good band has tracks available here, and on a DRM-restricted service, and market forces should take effect.
      • Sorry, but you can't win. If a band would get X sales at a DRM service and Y at a DRM-free service, where Y >> X, then all the MPAA would say is "if you'd sold it on the DRM-service only, you'd get X+Y+Z sales, where Z is all the people who pirates your stuff because it was EASY. Of course don't consumers want DRM (even though you can ram it down their throats by offering content exclusively available with DRM), but they'd silently ignore that some people wouldn't have bought the DRM version. They'll
        • Of course don't consumers want DRM (even though you can ram it down their throats by offering content exclusively available with DRM), but they'd silently ignore that some people wouldn't have bought the DRM version.

          So what you're saying is that the artist needs not to be stupid enough to fall for their pro-DRM propoganda?

      • UK Top 40 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/chart/albums.shtml/ [bbc.co.uk] - link probably only relevant this week, although they've been at the top for a couple of weeks now.

        Available,on 192-320 VBR MP3 from :

        http://www.playloudershop.com/ [playloudershop.com]

        Along with likes of Franz Ferdinand and White Stripes, both of whom have enjoyed multi-platinum sales in the UK - although mostly of physical CDs.

        OK, so it's not OGG, which is going to alienate some people who won't have MP3 on their machines, but it's proof commercial MP3 can

    • And this is bad?
      • There is no point in using a service in which you can't get songs from
        • There is no point in downloading a crappy song either which is what I consider most "popular music" nowadays.

          Besides, Linux is the "indy platform" of the computer desktop world. It has yet to appeal to mainstreamers who, for reasons unknown, like that music. Thus popular music probably ain't so popular for the linux crowd anyways.
          • Besides, Linux is the "indy platform" of the computer desktop world.

            Linux is "counterculture" not "indy". Indy is pro-business, it just wants those business to be smaller, more creative, and more responsive to the audience. A more decentralised capitalistic system.
            • Indy is pro-business, it just wants those business to be smaller, more creative, and more responsive to the audience. A more decentralised capitalistic system.

              as is linux
            • Eh, while Linux has a lot of "counterculture" users right now, the future of the Linux desktop is super-managed PCs in large corporations and governments. Forget any sort of consumer or small business marketshare - it just ain't happening anytime soon.

              Desktop Linux is sort of a new OS/2 -- they tried to pretend it was cool with "WaRp", but the reality was the only people who bought it were stodgy banks and insurance companies trying to keep PCs under lock-and-key. Doesn't play music? That's a feature.
              • Desktop Linux is sort of a new OS/2 -- they tried to pretend it was cool with "WaRp", but the reality was the only people who bought it were stodgy banks and insurance companies trying to keep PCs under lock-and-key. Doesn't play music? That's a feature.

                While I reckon you're right that only banks and insurance companies bought OS/2 by the dozen, I don't think it was for the un-coolness factor of it. OS/2 stayed without cool apps because the basic requirements to run it were way ahead of the consumer mark

    • Re:DRM (Score:5, Funny)

      by TheQuantumShift ( 175338 ) <monkeyknifefight@internationalwaters.com> on Saturday February 25, 2006 @12:32PM (#14800399) Homepage
      "counting out the majority of popular music today"

      Thank god.

    • Hey, thats a plus..
    • <time-travel epoch="middle ages"> This stupid Guttenberg is only printing Public Domain Bibles in crap quality ; what a shame his books are not fine hand written manuscripts of Plato, Aristotle and great scholars commentaries !</time-travel>

      Of course, it doesn't account for the fact that printed books created a massive upsurge in written production, from novels to new streams in philosophy. I sure hope that the music won't be mainstream to reach new levels of creativity which would have been s

    • Looking at Mindawn, it looks like it must have something (at least in the player software if not in the download files) - talk of files deleting after 3 preview plays.
      Not all Linux users have a problem running proprietary or closed-source software ON Linux . . . but I guess most home/hobby users would.

      As I've posted several times in the past 2 weeks, the current No.1 UK album is available for commercial download on MP3 (192-320 VBR) with no DRM - and yet despite the fact that kids can freely copy these tun
    • If the service is done right, I think it would still be interesting, as if there's one thing I've learnt from free sites like e.g. CNET's music.download.com, it's that currently marketed crap is far from having an advantage over music made by enthusiasts. Make the service structured with content beyond the basic music tracks, along with abilities to directly support the artists behind the music, and thinks could be quite interesting.

      However, I still don't quite understand what advantage such a service would
  • Another $1/song service with absolutely no selection... It would be cool that they used ogg if I were ever disposed to use it.
    • I do like the feature on emusic.com where you can sample the selection.
      Try this one. [emusic.com]
      It's "I'm a disco dancer", you'll love it.
      They send you the song at 192 bps, so you need broadband.
      Wonder if Mandriva's setup can do that?
    • Another $1/song service with absolutely no selection... It would be cool that they used ogg if I were ever disposed to use it.

      "no selection" means no big-names that you see on MTV right? Now wait for a moment and think the analogy between music and software.

      The big-name in software is Microsoft and propriatary software in general. Of course nobody will give you a copy of windows for free, let you use it in whatever machine you like or allow you to make copies of it, right? So what do we do about that? Inst
      • > Without any f***ing help from any f***ing music label.

        The problem is that there are so many bands and musicians that it's nearly impossible to come to a decision without some editorial process involved. Remember the old MP3.com? Living fucking hell.

        The editoral process that happens to be in use is called a "music label". Basically the market has to pay someone to filter out all the crap or nobody would listen to anything at all. The process isn't perfect, and downright sucks at times, but your alternat
        • So basically you're saying that you need record labels to tell you what's good music? That's pretty sad considerng what offerings the big four labels have been promoting the most these days.
          • No, I'm saying that in general, (signed bands) are much better than (unsigned bands) because (unsigned bands) include a ton of shit. Sure, ocassionally you'll walk into a bar and buy a unsigned band's CD, but I'll bet most of the music you listen to is on a label of some sort.
            • Most bands people end up listening to are signed because only a band with a distribution system gets their music out. Sure, label execs want the best music on their label, but that doesn't mean they have good taste in music. A band is usually only signed if it is seen as "marketable," which may not even conform to the label exec's own tastes in music. That's why most good bands, imho, come from indie labels.
    • Actually, you're wrong about the price. The songs cost more than 99c...

      You are right about the selection. Navigating to the "punk" section will show you 2 albums: since the main page is designed to show 4 albums it repeats the same 2 albums twice.

      Then, when you click on an album, you get: http://mindawn.com/albums/1336 [mindawn.com] $1.24 per track. So no, this is another music service with no selection, even by indy standards (2 albums per genre anyone?), but at least it's way more expensive.

  • Maybe... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by AusIV ( 950840 )
    Maybe Apple will finally decide to port iTunes to Linux if they see that there's a market.

    • Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Saturday February 25, 2006 @12:02PM (#14800279)
      Maybe this service will tank and Apple will say,"See we were right, theres no market there"
    • Maybe, just maybe.

      Yeah, and maybe I'm a Chinese jet pilot. [imdb.com]
  • 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.

  • I have basically stopped buying music for some time. It seems that noone wants to sell a reasonable selection of mp3/ogg music.
    CD's are not practical. DRM music has no value to me.

    emusic is pay-monthly. I just want to buy a few songs now and then.

    The only places to find mp3/ogg's to buy with a reasonably selection are Russian sites. But I don't quite trust my credit card floating around there.

    • Re:Russia MP3 sites (Score:3, Interesting)

      by swv3752 ( 187722 )
      Many banks allow you to generate one time use CC numbers. I know MBNA does. I wouldn't trust 'em with my real card either.

  • iTunes killer? Of course not. (Score:3, Interesting)

    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.

    • Obviously einstein here is too cerebral to ever consider gangsta rap as a valid musical artform.

      Unfortunately, in his snobbery and pride, he joins the ranks of those who scoffed at blues, who scoffed at the lascivious riffs of rock, who scoffed at the indecent improvisation of jazz, and watched the objects of their derision go onto be the foundations of modern music.

      Sad, how people don't seem to learn from history.

      -Laxitive

  • Linspire did this over a year ago (Score:3, Informative)

    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.

  • Isn't Mindawn already "built in" to every OS with a browser? How are they going to "integrate" it into Mandriva? Put a bookmark to mindawn.com on the desktop?
  • A service nobody will use. I give it a year tops.
  • I've seen long diatribes about how it is "evil" for Apple to bundle Safari with the OS but all of a sudden it is not a bad thing to bundle a single store music player with linux? I don't consider either to be evil since every OS needs some form of browser to easily "download" other software and it is not a bad thing to have a usable music player included with your OS either.

    Having said that, I find the hypocrisy of certain slashdot reader to be quite entertaining.

  • This is Nothing New.... (Score:2, Informative)

    by pvjr ( 184849 )
    Magnatune.com [magnatune.com] has been doing the same thing for a while now - minus the extra player. They work on an "honor" system. You pay what you think the artists are worth, and you can make as many copies as you need, even give 3 away to other people.

    And if you must have major label stuff, Real Rhapsody [rhapsody.com] has a beta version FireFox plugin that allows you to use the entire jukebox service. Given, you can't download and keep it, but at least you can listen to the service, and Real is doing something for us Linux us

  • If Spiggy Topes and the Turds were on Mindawn, I might be interested. But alas they aren't. I guess that as a "popular singing group" they could be too expensive for your average Linux user. Like Spinal Tap, really. I'm afraid that Mindawn doesn't conform to my free noise principles if they are not prepared to support the Turds or the Taps, and so I won't be using the service on moral grounds. However, I might make an exception if Mindawn invited RMS to make a two-hour speech at their billionth-download par

  • But... but... but... (Score:3, Funny)

    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.
  • Since Mandriva is French and thus almost European, maybe they will have a decent selection of music? I mean, I'm fairly standard and mainly listen to rock with the odd goth / goth-metal band thrown in, and I have a seriously hard time finding music I like on itunes. It's all r&b, rap, hip-hop and other stuff which barely qualify as music in my ears...

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