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Cool Mac Gear• iPod Video • iPod nano • iPod 1G-2G • iPod 3G • iPod 4G • iPod Mini • PowerBook-iBook • Garageband |
By Applelinks Senior Editor John H. Farr
Thank God for the Internet. How else would we be able to comment on something we've never tried or will ever be able to? Case in point: just now everyone is crowing that Microsoft "beat Apple" by launching a Windows Media Player-based music download service in Europe. Shades of BuyMusic.com! And yes, at least a few of the same disadvantages seem to apply. According to the Register, downloaded tracks may be transferred to music players or burned to CD "provided their coopyright owner has sanctioned such uses, and not all of them have." That's the same problem that still affects BuyMusic.com. Microsoft has partnered with Peter Gabriel's OD2 service, which claims to offer over 200,000 tunes, but just how many of them can a purchaser actually use and enjoy like iTunes Music Store downloads isn't exactly clear. The service's songs can't be played on iPods -- the world's most popular portable digital music player -- given the WMP 9 requirement. It will also be interesting to how reliable Microsoft technology proves to be, and whether or not Windows users will switch to the Windows version of the iTunes Music Store once it becomes available. (Please note that European copyright and licensing laws being what they are, it may be quite a while before European Windows users see an Apple service.)
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