Dear Gary, Gary Whitten wrote: > Thank you for all your info, guys. > > I have some more questions: > - what is DRM?
DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. There are several different systems for DRM, which are mechanisms to restrict what users can do with their media files (music, movies, etc.) usually using encryption somehow. DRM may restrict you using your media files only on certain computers or other media player devices, may restrict whether you can convert your media to another format (say burning to a CD), etc. The justification for this is usually that the people selling the media say they are trying to prevent those who buy the media from sharing with their friends in violation of copyright law (using, e.g., Kazaa or Direct Connect); however, as a side effect DRM may prevent you from doing many perfectly legal things with your media, will make you media incompatible with many devices and some computer operating systems, and may have other bad side-effects. Few if any DRM systems are compatible with Linux. As a result, a lot of people in the Linux community and elsewhere have taken to calling DRM Digital Restrictions Management, a more honest name. One clever quip I've read is that DRM "manages" rights in the same sense that jail "manages" freedom. For more information on DRM see these links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management http://www.eff.org/issues/drm http://computer.howstuffworks.com/drm.htm > - does eMusic just have indie music or is there also some way > to get music from main labels? I think eMusic is mostly smaller labels. Last time I used it it didn't seem to include many of the mainstream labels. Probably the easiest thing to do to see if it's suitable for you is to go browse their library for things you might be interested in and see what they have. Try this link: http://www.emusic.com/browse/all.html Hope that helps, Nick > > Gary Whitten wrote: >> I just got an MP3 player (Sandisk) and want to start subscribing >> to an MP3 download service. >> >> Does anyone have recommendations for a service that >> - is Linux friendly for downloading to the MP3 player >> - has a only a flat monthly fee and does NOT charge per song >> >> What do people think of Kazaa Gold and Napster? >> >> Thanks, >> Gary Whitten >> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
