Apparently, in the next version of Mandriva Linux will include access to a commercial music download service called Mindawn. It will offer downloads in both the Ogg Vorbis and non-lossy FLAC audio codecs, which presumably means there will be no DRM involved, as these formats do not support DRM.
This service won't be tied to Linux machines, however, as many download services are tied to a single platform. The service will be available to Windows, Mac OS X and Linux users.
In my opinion, this is a real step forward for Linux as a desktop platform, and I am very happy with Mindawn for being bothered to be truly cross-platform. One minor issue is that there appears to be limited support for popular artists, as they probably don't like the lack of DRM.
You can see the original story here (warning: irritating advertisement and automatic video play alert).
1 comment:
Interesting idea - obviously it's not new as a concept - Linux users can use services such as eMusic (uses unprotected MP3 format) as far as I know. What is new is the use of OS formats, like Ogg Vorbis, and that will act both as a bonus to some proprietry format-hating Linux users, and as a difficulty, as there are few music/media players which support the format.
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