DRM Free ITMS - Does it open the door for Amarok Integration????

[Nikolaj Hald Nielsen]

I'll give you my personal views on this.

First of all, I seriously doubt that Apple will ever open up the iTunes
music store to any third party programs. They have their own player
available for both  Windows And MacOS  so they have no real incentive  to do
so.  What MIGHT be possible is to make an arrangement with another, smaller
online store that does not have their own player/store combo app, since EMI
will surely offer their catalog to others than iTunes as well. (actually, it
says so in the announcement if I remember correctly)

Now, all that aside, I am very skeptical if this is something I would
personally recommend doing. While I commend EMI for releasing their music
DRM free, making it available to users of free software, their business
model as such has not changed. They are still a member of the RIAA and
similar organizations busy suing their fans into bankruptcy  and compared to
some of the emerging music labels (such as for instance Magnatune) they
still take the lions share of any profits leaving very little for the actual
artists. Is this something we wish to support, or do we wish to encourage
more artist and consumer friendly music labels? Also, I could imagine that
there will be a tons of contracts one would have to sign before being
allowed to sell their content, and who has the power / is willing to do so
on vbehalf of the Amarok project?

I guess it is really more of a question of what kind of music business
models we wish to support than about technical possibilities. In any case, I
am sure there will be online stores selling this music, making it easily
available without having to resort to a Windows or Mac system.

- Nikolaj

On 4/2/07, Colin Guthrie <gmane at colin.guthr.ie> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Following the recent announcement from Apple/EMI, does the fact that
> ITMS will now offer DRM free tunes for download open the door for
> integration with Amarok?
>
> I don't mean technically as that is clearly just dev hours, but will
> Apple be open to that? Is there any history there?
>
> Genuinely Curious.
>
> Col.
>
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