Subscription Based Music Downloads

[darkhammer]

Hey, i am wondering if anyone knows of a reliable subscription based music download hub that linux multimedia players will work with. I dual boot windows with linux so i dont mind booting into windows to download the files if need be. i know that itunes is not subscription based and from my understanding it uses a DRM so that it can only be played on certain programs, does this pertain to just mp3 players or does that imply that if i reboot into linux and try playing these files on amarok they will not work? also i have seen the zune download center which has a subscription system. can i play the files downloaded here from linux media players? lastly i saw that napster offers DRM free downloads for the napsterOnTheGo subscription, i assume that since these are DRM free anything can play these mp3 files (is that correct?).

does anyone else here download music from an online store and play it in linux? what do you use to make this work?

[i92guboj]

Hey, i am wondering if anyone knows of a reliable subscription based music download hub that linux multimedia players will work with. I dual boot windows with linux so i dont mind booting into windows to download the files if need be. i know that itunes is not subscription based and from my understanding it uses a DRM so that it can only be played on certain programs, does this pertain to just mp3 players or does that imply that if i reboot into linux and try playing these files on amarok they will not work? also i have seen the zune download center which has a subscription system. can i play the files downloaded here from linux media players? lastly i saw that napster offers DRM free downloads for the napsterOnTheGo subscription, i assume that since these are DRM free anything can play these mp3 files (is that correct?).

does anyone else here download music from an online store and play it in linux? what do you use to make this work?

I would stay away from drm. I don't know how some people can abide it... If I donwload something I want to be able to play it wherever I want, because I am a live being, and I move. Drm is good for vegetals only.

To anwer your question, I think that amarok supports lastfm subscriptions, but I have not tried it myself. I am still the kind of guy that likes going to a shop, and there're online stores for these things I can not find in my local store.

[cayalee]

i've looked into this previously and run into several barriers, most notably DRM that means you have to use windows media player on xp/2000/vista otherwise you cant register/play anything. i have heard of DRM-free sites but these are usually for indie labels so the only bands on there are ones you've never heard of..

[bigtomrodney]

Only half-way on topic, but have you looked at the magnatune integration in Amarok? You can listen to anythng you want and you pay for what you want to keep. It works quite well. Also Last.fm would provide you with some pretty cool music services to play with, and you can subscribe to get a lot of extra functionality.

Amarok includes support for this too.