Why do MP3 sellers insist on MS (or MAC) OS?

:wtf:

I spent a couple of $100 on itunes and then upgraded my computers to new boards etc and instead of spending $1K for the MS virus enabled OS I put linux on them. Life was ok under Itunes 6.? but then they went to 7.0 and screwed linux good totally binding the encryption to MS (Mac)

So the bottom line is that if you haven't spent big $ on your OS Itunes in going to steal your music.

So, I looked around and found Rhapsody and a few others. Rhapsody will not even let you download their player without a (newer) MS (maybe Mac) OS. I looked at a Russian seller, 14c/per song, and they are legal (not everything is available) but they too insisted on an MS Operating System.

The funny thing was that the downloaded program (MP3 downloader) was a Java program and hence should have worked everywhere. After decompiling I found the only problem in the code was hard coded file separators used in constructing the download path. I can now use the site. I sent them a note about the problem detailing exactly where to go and what to do and to date they have not change the program.

So what is it? What can possibly be the answer to this. There are at least 100Ks of linux users and their money should be as good as an MS owner.

So here is a hint for those with spec money and no brains. HTTPS the transaction and have the folks log in. There is no difference in selling MP3s or Software online.

The first company legal enough to sell Offspring "Gone Away" and supports Linux gets my money. The bottom line is that I'm not spending $1K for the opportunity to spend money on your site.

So the anti for using Itunes is either a grand for a Mac or a grand for MS. Then I can spend money on their site.

I don't buy Macs to make Apple richer or happier. I buy them because they are quality products. And they interface with my iphone and my ipod. Makes my life much easier. If Apple gets richer, that's fine. I would say they deserve it because they produce such quality products.

seriously

If they cannot "get" that there are people willing to spend money on their product but will not due to some connection to Closed Source Operating Systems, fuck 'em.

...Does not require any software unless you want to purchase an entire album.

Which doesn't include "Gone Away" by The Offspring, which is apparently important to this poster. That's obviously just one example of many songs that aren't available on Amazon MP3.

It's not that complicated to find ways around these things if you don't want to pay "$1,000" for an operating system.

Amazon can't help it if Sony is a DRM-loving label.

and there is no reason (except to indicate their is an inside deal or their programmers are morons) for their downloader to be dependent on any OS.

They might have chosen to go with a more native Windows widget set for their user interface than the default Swing, in which case it wouldn't work at all for other operating systems. If it's browser-based, they might be using functionality of MSIE that doesn't exist in other browsers, I've seen several programs like that.

Not saying they should be doing these things, but it's not necessarily a single switch to be flipped to solve the problem, and there's very little one can tell about a full program just by looking at the disassembled bytecode.

There are lots of programs like Azureus, though, that show you can have a great user interface using only Java widgets.

And the "write once, run anywhere" promise of Java isn't entirely accurate. There are many cases where code written for one platform simply won't work for another, and it's more than just hardcoded file separators.

That being said, I'm always frustrated by the lack of support for DRM-protected formats on Linux. I bought and downloaded an e-book last year that was in a proprietary protected format from Adobe, and they had no Linux viewer for it. It had been advertised as a PDF file, not as a DRM-protected proprietary format. Of course I got no refund.

Can't wait for DRM to go the way of the dinosaur so we can all move to open formats.

Rather than going away, it seems to be becoming more entrenched. iTunes plays a part in this. They tried to control how many times you can play a certain selection where. I don't know if they still have that 'feature', since I refuse, whenever possible, to go with those that push proprietary routes.

BTW, do they still have 99 cents a song? For one song, I guess I could see it (although if you look, you can get it much cheaper, without DRM). But people who buy an entire CD? You can get a used CD for $7.

It is annoying to see it becoming entrenched.

People will eventually realize that you can't protect a string of 1s and 0s from being copied, no matter how artfully you disguise those 1s and 0s, because eventually the file has to be decrypted for use. Hackers are getting more skilled at breaking DRM and copy protection schemes faster and faster. Very quickly, content producers will check their paperwork and realize they're losing more money on DRM research and implementation than they'd possibly be losing through piracy.

If some kind of music or an mp3 player doesn't work with it, I simply don't bother.

If people don't want me to listen to their music or use their mp3 players because I use Linux, I'm fine with that.

When everything is copy protected and encrypted, no problem, I'll get a few friends together and we'll make our own music.

You might want to drop a note to the artists and tell them how you feel.

Why not just buy a good flash memory based mp3 player? All you have to do (for windows) is open the folder that the downloaded/copied songs are in, and open the folder for the flash memory mp3 player, and simply drag and drop the mp3 files. Its that easy! Why make it so complicated by using some 3rd party software? I just dont understand it.

player and like it better!

that's how i always got around DRM issues. on iTunes. and why on earth did you updte to the latest version of iTunes w/o checking the community forums to see if its new stuff is good for you or not?