Thursday’s Music 2.0 Briefing: Net Radio Soars, iTunes Stripper, Zune Adds Games & Much More
> Net music radio and track plays grew 26% in 2007 and ad revenue soared. But a new study shows there is lots more room for growth. (AccuStream)
> Music search engine Gimado.com has grabbed $300,000 in funding. (Mashable)
> Doublestream strips DRM from iTunes downloads. (Lifehacker) Of course, I still can’t figure out how Amazin can sell tracks DRM free and the might DRM fighter Steve Jobs only offers a limited selection.
> Herbie Hancock, Amy Winehouse and others got the expected Grammy sales boost. (FMQB)
> Zune will soon add gaming to its bag of tricks with titles from XNA and Xbox. (ars)
> Emusic and Avis team for free downloads. (Avis)
> A think tank wants to block the XM and Sirius merger. (Listening Post)
> Turning that dusty old stack of vinyl into something useful. (OurDigitalMusic)
Slight correction: DoubleTwist (not Stream) does not strip DRM from your iTunes purchases. It converts them to wav and then reconverts them to DRM free whatever. This is transcoding, not stripping and it’s something anyone has been able to do since day one. DVD John just automated the process and he wasn’t the first at that.
Now, JHymn stripped the DRM from iTunes purchases, but they got shut down long ago. There’s also a WMA stripper, but I can’t remember the name. Those programs dont touch the original files, except to remove the DRM. What you are left with is the exact same thing you paid for, but with the restrictions removed. DoubleTwist loses more quality because of the transcoding process.
I’m not trying to pick on you guys. Everyone is mis characterizing this as “stripping” DRM as well. I’m more irritated because I’d really like to see something that would do that, like JHymn, and this isn’t it. That and I think more people need to understand what this is and that it’s not the same as just removing the DRM. You will lose audio quality with this software.