Usability idea: Internet Radio

Yesterday Mark introduced me to a new streaming radio station, Beatles Radio. It's a stream of Beatles, Beatles-covers and Beatles-related acts.

To listen, I went to the link Mark sent me via IM, and scanned the page looking for a play button. There wasn't one, but there are links that say 'Windows Player', 'iTunes Player' and 'Winamp Player' as well as 'Custom Player' - I had to make a decision which one would be best, and I chose Winamp. I don't have Winamp, and as it turns out, both iTunes and Winamp both take me to the same location.

Would it be neat if there was a defined standard for internet radio stations to put a tag in their markup with the URL of their stream? Maybe there could be an option for Ogg Vorbis streams too?

Today, when I wanted to listen again, I opened Rhythmbox, and clicked 'Radio' on the sidebar. I noticed there was a button at the top 'New Internet Radio Station' (this would probably be better as an 'Add Internet Radio Station') - I clicked this and typed 'beatlesradio.com', but it didn't work.

So, I propose the following.

<link rel="stream proprietary" href="http://www.beatlesradio.com:8088/listen.pls" title="Beatles Radio" />

<link rel="stream" href="http://www.beatlesradio.com/this/url/does/not/exist.pls" title="Beatles Radio (Ogg Vorbis)" />

The 'proprietary' property would be for stream in formats other than Ogg Vorbis/Ogg Theora, which hopefully will still make it to HTML 5. User agents could see this tag and do something awesome with it. Plugins for Firefox could offer one click streaming of Internet Radio, and things would be good.

Syndicated 2008-05-07 18:18:12 from Exploring Freedom with Matt Lee

Some cool jobs for freedom

• Open Rights Group is hiring a part-time campaigner in London
• Free Software Foundation is looking for a systems administrator in Boston

Syndicated 2008-04-25 17:49:55 from Exploring Freedom with Matt Lee

The Day The Music Dies

After the end of August, music purchased from Microsoft's now-defunct MSN Music store will no longer be able to authorize itself for new devices. Put more simply -- if you get a new player or computer, or you decide to upgrade your operating system (which isn't something I'd advise), your music won't be able to come with you. Once September rolls around, you'll be stuck with your music on the five computers you've previously authorized.

This serves as painful reminder of the real ways in which DRM is bad for consumers. When faced with situations like this, it is impossible to speak of DRM as being part of 'rights', when it only serves to restrict the very people who supported the store in the first place. Of course, you can go and buy all your music again from the Zune Marketplace, but that has another, incompatible DRM scheme... and who's to say Microsoft won't pull another stunt like this when they
finally realize the Zune is doomed to failure.

Instead, buy music from services which don't set themselves up to restrict you if they fail. Check out 'A guide to DRM Free Living'.

Syndicated 2008-04-23 21:57:29 from Exploring Freedom with Matt Lee

Fuck you Twitter. Fuck you hard.

Your website is full of fail. IM down for weeks. Weeks.

Please die in a fire. @mattl

Syndicated 2008-04-13 02:04:43 from Exploring Freedom with Matt Lee

Remix Radiohead. Rickroll Radiohead.

We're no strangers to love...

Radiohead is having a remixing contest. I suggest you take a good, long look at the terms and conditions before you take part, especially the bit about you having to transfer your rights to Warner Chappell, Xurbia (Radiohead's company) and Radiohead personally, by name, as songwriters. You also need a Mac, and iTunes, and to pay to download 5 tracks (which presumably are DRM free as you're importing them into GarageBand), plus GarageBand, which is proprietary.

However, Radiohead are quite happily allowing people to upload a five meg MP3 to their website. Wouldn't it be funny if people took it upon themselves to upload Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up', in various remixes, mashup and other interesting and creative ways, dozens of times, in protest to the rather unfriendly terms of the contest?

Just a thought.

In other news, Sony BMG is apparently threatening people for Rickrolling on YouTube.

I predict the track will get a single release in some form fairly soon. I hope Astley rerecords it and makes a mint off it himself.

Oh, and for anyone else wondering about yesterday's post. Check the date.

Syndicated 2008-04-02 05:15:50 from Exploring Freedom with Matt Lee