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MP3.com Founder Builds Music Service

By Ed Oswald and Nate Mook, BetaNews

February 2, 2005, 1:46 PM

Michael Robertston could only stay out of the digital music business for so long. The former CEO and founder of MP3.com, as well as the Linspire operating system and SIPphone voice over IP phone company, announced MP3tunes Wednesday. The online music service hopes to attract users with a twist: DRM-free downloadable tunes.

Instead of simply joining an already competitive market, Robertson is targeting music buyers turned off by non-standard audio formats and digital rights management (DRM). In the process, Robertson hopes to rekindle the consumer freedom surrounding MP3.

"Today, certain market forces are trying to drive consumers away from MP3 towards proprietary systems, which lock out some consumers and force everyone to buy a particular company's player or software program," Robertson said. "I wanted consumers to have more options, so I felt compelled to reenter the music space to bring the limelight back to MP3."

Tracks purchased from MP3tunes will come without DRM, meaning users will be free to burn music they purchase on any player or computer, as well as make unlimited copies of songs and burn their music onto CDs.

It's not clear how MP3tunes plans to gain the support of record labels, which have explicitly said they will not allow their music to be distributed digitally without some kind of protection to prevent illicit file sharing. MP3tunes has also not yet announced what music will be featured in its library; MP3.com was largely populated by independent artists.

The service will be formally launched next week at the Desktop Summit in San Diego. MP3tunes plans to eventually sell several products including a hardware device and software, the company said.

Requests for comment from MP3tunes were not returned by press time.

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By spiffyjeff

posted Feb 3, 2005 - 2:15 AM

mp3 and "open" that's a laugh. Ogg Vorbis is an open format that "has been designed to completely replace all proprietary, patented audio formats" - I hate to say it, but MP3 is on that list.

Fellow OGG users, please help by sending e-mails/posts to software/portable players that doesn't currently support ogg vorbis. They never will support it unless they see a demand for it, our e-mails/posts are demand.

To those who do not know about ogg, read this: http://www.xiph.org/about.html

Score: 0

By RobertM

posted Feb 2, 2005 - 5:07 PM

First, as the article says, I doubt they'll get any major support, though it may be good for smaller/independent artists.

But he seems to be pushing MP3 as an "open" technology. It isn't. It doesn't much affect end users, but producers of MP3 players have to pay a fee to Thompson for the (legal) use of the patent; same with encoders. Ogg Vorbis *is* open and is arguably better quality at a smaller file size, but I suppose that what Michael means by being "open" is simply "so ubiquitous that everyone thinks it is open".

Score: 0

By DJInsomniac

posted Feb 2, 2005 - 6:59 PM

I thought only MP3pro was owned by Thompson.

Score: 0

By wormeyman

edited Feb 2, 2005 - 6:38 PM

mp3 might not open but it is a universal format. On the other hand only 1 digital audio player supports ogg vorbis.

Score: 0

By spiffyjeff

posted Feb 4, 2005 - 1:43 AM

"...only 1 digital audio player supports ogg vorbis" Apparently you haven't gone to this webpage: http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/PortablePlayers

Score: 0

By Somnambulator

posted Feb 2, 2005 - 11:24 PM

when Michael hinted at a return to the world of digital music in his latest newsletter, my 1st inclination was some sort of pay service involving MP3, ogg vorbis, or both. he has consistantly been an adamount supported of open source and license-free technologies, so his decisions regarding MP3s (which doesnt mean they wont ever have .ogg support) was probably well thought out.

it is true, MP3 is not open source or license-free (i believe it's owned by the german engineer that invented it, begins with an F) but it is so universally accepted that it's almost a necessity to at least support it.

.ogg is my format of choice and i havent had any problems with compatibility. winamp and a dozen other software players has supported it natively for almost 2 years. i have a 20 gig portably jukebox with .ogg support and i had probably 4 different models/brands from which to choose.

michael's reinstroduction into the digital media business is not without risk, and i think limited his variables and possible turn-offs is a great idea, at least until the service is up and running with subscriptions or sales. i'd say 90% of the people interested dont even know that MP3 does not totally encompass digital music, let alone what .ogg is.

Score: 0

By wormeyman

posted Feb 2, 2005 - 2:39 PM

I seem to remember that the last time mp3.com was alive it was mostly indi bands that used them to host a few songs of theirs.

Also linspire is just a joke of a distro.

Score: 0

By spiffyjeff

posted Feb 3, 2005 - 2:06 AM

Indi bands are great! If you want something else, go to itunes. They will be happy to sell you a license to listen to music, as long as you dont try to re-sell it when it gets old to your ears, unlike CDs bought in store.

Many bands start off as independant artists anyway, that doesn't make them any less, infact, I admire them more for being indies, until they sell their soul to unethical labels.

And Linspire really has nothing to do with MP3TUNES.

Score: 0

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