Magnatune releasing USB thumb drives pre-loaded with music
posted March 11th 2005 6:02AM
Leave it to a small, progressive label to be forward-thinking enough to start releasing tracks on USB flash drives.
Magnatune, the online record label founded by John Buckman, struck a deal with Hana Micron (a spinoff of Samsung — you
know, like how The Facts of Life was a spinoff of Different Strokes) to launch TunePlug, a reusable
USB flash drive that will come pre-loaded with complete MP3 albums from 10 Magnatune artists. Of the deal, Hana Micron
spokesperson Jon Jaroker said, "We chose to partner with Magnatune because of the high quality of their artists and
their flexibility as a new kind of record label" which we translate to mean "Magnatune is a label that didn't want to
make us jump through ridiculous hoops of DRM fire. Oh, and they actually release decent music." All tracks are pure,
Creative Commons-licensed MP3s born of Zion, so you've gotta know they're guaranteed to, um, play for sure.
[Via Boing Boing]
I don't know which is more genius: this idea or Magnatune's slogan: We are not evil.
Not to be pedantic, but isn't it "Diff'rent Strokes"?
You really lose the hip, urban flavor that the show had when you spell it "different."
this gives me hope... the problem i have with downloading music, and the reason i have only downloaded a handful of songs (besides the fact that i have 400 cds) is that you don't really get anything with your song. i love the album art and the feel of putting something on your shelf as a "collection" of music. This shows that there are still ways to make music buying an experience rather than just a couple of clicks in front of your computer.
Hmm. Music on SD, mini-SD, XD et al? How about mini music players with no memory but with a flash card slot? Take a typical South Korean flash music player and remove all the memory. Would it be so cheap you could give it away in gas stations? Then make all the profit from selling 1Gb (2, 4, 8) flash cards. This riff goes further. Why bother with P2P, just plug the flash card into your friend's PC and suck it up.
I think it's a really cool idea. Seems like a good way to get their music out.
Now all we need is in dash car sterios with USB ports on them that will read the drive and maybe even display the included album art as the song is playing
its prolly already in cars in japan
"Now all we need is in dash car sterios with USB ports on them"
that's a kickass idea jeff!
i wish i thought of that...
Shucks auto parts sells a Roadmaster am/fm cdr with line in and a usb port. Roadmaster VRCD300USB
AM/FM/CD Receiver: with USB Port
MP3 & WMA compatible
USB port accepts flash memory drive
160 Watts
Displays song title, artist, album genre
Stereo AUX input
30 Station Presets
4 Channel RCA Preamp Outputs
Our Price: $99.99.
Just thought you'd like to know.
"Shucks auto parts sells a Roadmaster am/fm cdr with line in and a usb port. Roadmaster VRCD300USB"
Bob, I've seen this unit advertised, but haven't heard any reviews... I think it's a fantastic idea, especially because it has an aux input that can take a feed from the headphone jack of your MP3 player as well. Have you heard this unit? Why isn't Alpine or some of the big boys doing this, rather than simply catering to the Ipod?
Wipster