Amazon subsidiary Audible.com is a great resource for audio books, but none too friendly if you want to access those files under Linux. Here’s one way to solve the problem. More »
Further proof that we love MP3 and hate DRM: BigPond Music will stop selling music in the Windws Media Audio (WMA) format from April 1. More »
The RIAA have finally declared DRM dead for music, according to all-things-BitTorrent weblog TorrentFreak. You won’t see us arguing, having avoided DRMed music like the plague ever since it started gaining ground in the post-Napster 2.0 world, but the steady decline of digital rights management in recent months has been a welcome move all around. More »
Unless you’ve got an Apple TV or computer next to your TV, your purchased iTunes movies are limited to your monitor. Wired details how to burn those movies to a DVD for the bigscreen experience. More »
Microsoft’s limited success with the Windows Media format for selling music (and movies) has largely been due to its willingness to add uber-annoying DRM to keep copyright holders happy. So it’s amusing to see the Big M officially recommending that customers who have used those services work their way around them. Here’s an extract from an email which Microsoft has sent to subscribers of its soon-to-be-defunct UK music store (I once purchased a single song from it for research purposes and hence ended up on the mailing list).
We recommend that you back up any previously downloaded tracks to audio CD using Windows Media Player. This will protect your music collection for future listening.
This approach isn’t new to anyone who has sought to remove DRM from Windows Media files (or from iTunes, for that matter), but it’s nice to see it given the company seal of approval. More »
Just because Apple and Big Music dropped the DRM doesn’t mean they want you trading your iTunes purchases. CNET notes that buyers’ registered email addresses are embedded in every file, and so (somewhat) trace-able. [via Slashdot]
The news that Apple will offer DRM-free tracks and let you convert existing protected music is pretty welcome, but as Nick over at Gizmodo points out, it won’t come cheap. Converting existing tracks will cost 50 cents a pop, videos will be $1, and whole albums will cost 30% of the original purchase price. All that sound nastily excessive to us for stuff you’ve already paid for (and a good reason to break out the CD burner for some cost-free conversion instead). As Nick notes, it’s also important to check any future purchases to ensure you don’t actually purchase a DRM-hindered track; if that looks like the only option, hanging out until April, when a bunch more tracks will be freed up, seems sensible. More »
