OGG Vorbis Music Store

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2006-06-13 05:23pm

Is there a legal music store online where I can download .ogg format files rather than crappy, overly large MP3 files or proprietary and DRM full WMA/MP4 files? I ask, only because the sole source for such open-source music formats is via the very P2P networks that make the RIAA/MPAA cry at night, and I certainly don't wan to deprive millionaires of their pennies.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-06-13 08:03pm

AFAIK, no.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2006-06-13 08:27pm

Thought not. Guess I'm a communist then.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-06-13 08:43pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:Thought not. Guess I'm a communist then.

LAME MP3 is good enough for me

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2006-06-13 08:53pm

Yeah, where the hell did this .ogg shit come from all of a sudden?

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-06-13 08:55pm

Poor old spanky, clearly don't have your finger on the zeitgiest this time.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2006-06-13 08:56pm

Well as Phong said, lame MP3 is good enough for me.

Seriously, .ogg? Whatev...

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-06-13 09:08pm

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Well as Phong said, lame MP3 is good enough for me.

LAME in my case refers to a specific MP3 encoder - one carefully tuned for maximum quality.

Destructionator XIII wrote:It has been around for quite some time, about 4 years now. It is a format superior to mp3 in a few ways. File sizes are usally smaller for same quality, and it is free (as in freedom).

Free as in speech and beer, you mean

Ogg Vorbis also has the advantage that it is unencumbered by any software patents - MP3 is and generally requires a license to make an encoder.

It is very common in the Free Software circles, though not so much so in the Windows land, probably due to inertia more than anything.

MP3 got market penetration and Ogg Vorbis is not sufficiently good enough to cause people to change. In addition, an integer-only implementation of its decoder was a long time coming - preventing mobile devices from playing it for some time. Finally, it's a more complex codec than MP3.

Spacebeard · Post by **Spacebeard** » 2006-06-13 09:23pm

Destructionator XIII wrote:It is very common in the Free Software circles, though not so much so in the Windows land, probably due to inertia more than anything.

It is used to encode the music in quite a few Windows games, though. So plenty of people are listening to Ogg Vorbis files on a daily basis without having ever heard of it.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-06-13 09:25pm

RIFF-encoded MP3 (aka MP3-in-WAV) seems to be the most common, though.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2006-06-14 09:12am

Since ogg vorbis is only open source, what makes you think any store would be selling music with that format anyways? Most MP3 players don't even support it, so I can't imagine it being very popular outside of niche groups.

Yogi · Post by **Yogi** » 2006-06-14 10:37am

I summon the power of Google to assist me!!

This online music store list lists several stores that use ogg, as well as others that use FLAC. It's from Wikipedia, so standard disclamers apply.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2006-06-14 02:36pm

General Zod wrote:Since ogg vorbis is only open source, what makes you think any store would be selling music with that format anyways? Most MP3 players don't even support it, so I can't imagine it being very popular outside of niche groups.

Easy. Companies don't have to pay licence fees for using .ogg as opposed to proprietary WMA and MP3/4. Which do you think appeals more to a company? Paying for something, or getting it for free, hmm?

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-06-14 05:53pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:Easy. Companies don't have to pay licence fees for using .ogg as opposed to proprietary WMA and MP3/4. Which do you think appeals more to a company? Paying for something, or getting it for free, hmm?

And how big is the target audience for Ogg Vorbis? Unless a company can come out with a total solution (like the iPod/iTunes combo) that is appealing to the market it is a nonstarter, and the RIAA will want DRM anyways (which probably can be added in)

Instant Sunrise · Post by **Instant Sunrise** » 2006-06-14 06:00pm

Except that adding DRM to ogg vorbis would cause a huge hissyfit from RMS and the rest of the Free Software community. If ogg vorbis is put under the GPLv3, it would also be illegal to do so.

However, the specifications for the format are public domain, so somebody could write a new ogg vorbis implementation from the ground up that has DRM in it.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2006-06-14 06:15pm

phongn wrote: And how big is the target audience for Ogg Vorbis? Unless a company can come out with a total solution (like the iPod/iTunes combo) that is appealing to the market it is a nonstarter, and the RIAA will want DRM anyways (which probably can be added in)

For the moment, the biggest target is the gaming and other software app. sector where Vorbis has been used before and proven itself. There are increasing numbers of portable digital players utilising Vorbis too because of the simple fact that they don't have any legal hassle with putting it in there, my Samsung flash player can play any format bar MP4, and I always try to get Vorbis encodes.

Give it time. The increase in MP4 down to iTunes is readily evident now, but still somewhat limited next to MP3. We may yet see Ogg take-off when enough developers and companies see the benefits of it over royalty based systems. It's not unlike the rise of Linux running PDAs.

Spacebeard · Post by **Spacebeard** » 2006-06-14 06:18pm

skyman8081 wrote:Except that adding DRM to ogg vorbis would cause a huge hissyfit from RMS and the rest of the Free Software community.

It might, but who cares what he says? He hasn't been able to force the Linux kernel people to adopt GPLv3.

If ogg vorbis is put under the GPLv3, it would also be illegal to do so.

The Ogg Vorbis specification and its library implementation are not GPL. Why would they suddenly change their license to a ridiculously restrictive one that would prohibit use by not only DRM systems, but also closed-source games and music players?

However, the specifications for the format are public domain, so somebody could write a new ogg vorbis implementation from the ground up that has DRM in it.

They wouldn't even need to do that; DRM is just an encryption system and doesn't need to be built into any particular audio or video compressor. Apple didn't need to change the industry standard AAC codec to create their completely proprietary "FairPlay" system, for example.

Instant Sunrise · Post by **Instant Sunrise** » 2006-06-14 06:31pm

Spacebeard wrote:It might, but who cares what he says? He hasn't been able to force the Linux kernel people to adopt GPLv3.

Point taken.

Spacebeard wrote:The Ogg Vorbis specification and its library implementation are not GPL. Why would they suddenly change their license to a ridiculously restrictive one that would prohibit use by not only DRM systems, but also closed-source games and music players?

I see you are right, I simply misread the Ogg Vorbis FAQ. Conceded.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-06-14 06:54pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:Give it time. The increase in MP4 down to iTunes is readily evident now, but still somewhat limited next to MP3. We may yet see Ogg take-off when enough developers and companies see the benefits of it over royalty based systems. It's not unlike the rise of Linux running PDAs.

AAC got a boost only because Apple packaged it in a shiny, consumer-friendly and content-rich medium - not to mention DRM-friendly (abliet a rather benign DRM). Who is going to do so for Vorbis? Sure, some game developers might use it for embedded audio, but that does not translate into success in the commercial music market.

As for the rise of Linux PDAs ... hah! What rise?

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2006-06-14 07:21pm

phongn wrote: AAC got a boost only because Apple packaged it in a shiny, consumer-friendly and content-rich medium - not to mention DRM-friendly (abliet a rather benign DRM). Who is going to do so for Vorbis? Sure, some game developers might use it for embedded audio, but that does not translate into success in the commercial music market.

This hasn't really happened for MP3 or others yet either. The percentage of music sales that could be garnered from the web is massive, but so far only iTunes is the real success story. You'd think MP3 et al would have just as big a base as Apple's, but the RIAA seem reluctant (wonder why). There is nothing saying Ogg won't endure and become a mainstream medium, if only because of the numbers of people going for open-source, royalty free software.

As for the rise of Linux PDAs ... hah! What rise?

The past few years has seen various models of PDA come out with Linux as the main system, or as an option. Many dedicated embedded systems run Linux, and so do many phones as well, since the cost of going to MS or Psion for making the OS or developing it inhouse is more than just tinkering with DSL or the like. Most of what I refer to is in the background, but it is there, just it takes time to get momentum as with the desktop area (which is rapidly changing since the late nineties now). I'd never have touched such an OS just two years ago, now I know many personal friends who use Ubuntu.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-06-14 08:29pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:This hasn't really happened for MP3 or others yet either.

MP3 had years of rampant piracy to build momentum and market penetration. And it's "good enough" for most use. It never needed a legal music store - it had Napster.

The percentage of music sales that could be garnered from the web is massive, but so far only iTunes is the real success story. You'd think MP3 et al would have just as big a base as Apple's, but the RIAA seem reluctant (wonder why). There is nothing saying Ogg won't endure and become a mainstream medium, if only because of the numbers of people going for open-source, royalty free software.

The number of consumers going for open-source, royalty-free software is not that big, though. Servers don't care about Ogg, embedded doesn't care about it - and those are where Linux is winning big. As for why MP3 isn't the big format on the legal block? No DRM. You know that.

The past few years has seen various models of PDA come out with Linux as the main system, or as an option. Many dedicated embedded systems run Linux, and so do many phones as well, since the cost of going to MS or Psion for making the OS or developing it inhouse is more than just tinkering with DSL or the like.

But how many? Not that many. And embedded systems often run other OSes instead (Linksys moved away from Linux because it is too bloated) or their own custom firmware. Linux presents its own problems - not the least that it was never really designed for realtime or embedded applications. And even all these devices are a drop in the bucket, all told, and not really affecting the consumer market much.

Most of what I refer to is in the background, but it is there, just it takes time to get momentum as with the desktop area (which is rapidly changing since the late nineties now). I'd never have touched such an OS just two years ago, now I know many personal friends who use Ubuntu.

So do I, but we're not average users. And that momentum is building up very slowly.