Shame they didn't copy AllOfMp3 and offer any encoding you want priced per MB. A quick check confirms AOMP3 have ELO's Time for $1.91 at 192Kb VBR or $$2.96 for Ogg-320Kb

Forget ELO, this service is already a goldmine: Do a search on "Stock Aiken Waterman". I'm very tempted to get the album that comes up.

Interpretation of the MP3 format is covered by a (European company held) patent. As a software patent, it is not valid in Europe, but it is enforceable in the U.S. Very few Linux distributions (e.g., Linspire is an exception) have licensed the patent. Amazon needs to be careful; they could get sued as an "attractive nuisance" - a legal term of art you want to look up.

If you read Amazon's FAQ you find that their proprietary software is required - if you want to buy whole albums. This is because the songs are "queued up" by that program (this is apparently a big challenge to Amazon). And, as you say, no FLAC, no wav. PS: in sunny Cali, we have heard of ALL those groups <waving off with a limp hand>. NO: Los Dug Dug's, Cleopatra's Vagina. YES: The Slits, Fu Manchu, 1 cut from Bud and Travis, Rhinoceros, and Rumplestiltskin. I see a drinking game in the making.

AAARRRGHHH!

I remember buying Time by ELO on vinyl with great expectations, but compared to their earlier work I was a little disappointed. Time was a little too synthetic, but there were a few good tracks on that album. Now if you said the "Discovery" Album, I would say Woot, Woot, and also the double Album "Out of the Blue" has a special place in my heart too, and still remains my favorite!

Yeah....Crowded House were Australian. Singer Neil Finn comes from NZ, but the band formed in Oz, played around the world, and held their farewell concert in Oz....They're Australian and that's that mate.

> There is, however, a way to compress a CD by 50% or more yet don't lose a single bit of information: it's a codec dubbed FLAC It's a great codec, but let's not exaggerate! From wikipedia, "Audio sources encoded to FLAC are typically reduced in size 30 to 40 percent." I have also personally found this to be the case, since I recently started backing up some CDs to flac with the excellent autoflac.

"1. It would be really great if, based on GEO-location or the country where the credit card is registered, prices could be adapted to the realities of the local market -that is, the price of a new CD in the customer's market" No it wouldn't!!! Here in the UK, our CD prices are outrageous, compared to those in the US or Europe. We're tired of being ripped off already, please don't encourage the music industry to make it worse!

How funny, before I finished reading the article I had already searched for ELO and for "Fire on High". And yes, I used to own several vinyl ELO albums, Time, El Dorado, Ole' ELO, A New World Record, Out of the Blue, Discovery, and I recently bought Zoom, which was a disappointment due to the terrible sound quality. Fortunately, I still have them on cassette and have managed to transfer most of them into ogg. The only vinyl album I still have is Out of the Blue. Maybe I will sell it one day in Ebay. Keep your eyes open. Any way, I salute all you ELO fans out there. PS: Shame on the inquirer for forcing me to use ie to post this comment. The verification code does not display at all on Firefox. :P

Hi, Would like to make a correction in the article and responses. If you use MP3 for home use (not redistribution) the patent holder has no problem w/Linux users using it. I am sorry I can not quickly give you the specific web page reference of the patent holder to go to confirm this, but there are words to this effect if you want to dig for it.

If we want FLAC on Amazon we'd better start writing them. I'll send them an e-mail tonight.

Well, I also tried to use Amazon's MP3 store from my Linux box and cannot share this glowing experience. Try and buy a whole CD and you're screwed as buying a CD requires the silly download manager, which of course only run on windoze and Mac. Amazon claims to have a Linux version under development. We'll see.

I forgot to say that according to ArsTechnica "Amazon has also announced that a Linux version will be available soon" http://tinyurl.com/25q5ox

the only shame is the tittle of this article, you cant pirate a cd that you already own, for that matter a vinil disc or magnetic tape. Why would i want to d/l a cd i already have? If you are saving a record publisher all overhead cost of duplication printing etc, then why is it so expensive. Its like the self checkout lines appearing at super markets, you bag your groceries check your self out and pay the same inflated price. Why dont you give yourself a swift kick in the arse while youre at it.

"U.S. Linux mp3 illegal Interpretation of the MP3 format is covered by a (European company held) patent. As a software patent, it is not valid in Europe, but it is enforceable in the U.S. Very few Linux distributions (e.g., Linspire is an exception) have licensed the patent. Amazon needs to be careful; they could get sued as an "attractive nuisance" - a legal term of art you want to look up. " Not true: "Fluendo has paid the license of Fraunhofer and Thomson to be able to distribute a binary mp3 decoder. This means that people who want mp3 support for the desktop music players can get a fully licensed plug-in directly from this site for doing so." via http://www.fluendo.com/resources/fluendo_mp3.php

I would definitely be more interested in the OGG vorbis format. I'm not a lawyer, but I believe Amazon is a far cry away from being liable under the "attractive nuisance" argument. Even though the MP3 format is not licensed readily by most Linux distributions I am pretty sure that neither Microsoft or Apple have licensed the format for inclusion in their operating systems either. Despite this a few Linux distributions have licensed it! Here is also why they would not be liable: 1. Users can obtain licenses/codecs legally for Linux through third party companies. Some distributions like Linspire, Xandros, Turbolinux, Novell and others have licensed it (double check- pretty certain these companies have licensed it for at least one version of the distribution). 2. Music downloaded with the computer is most likely to be transfered to an external audio playing device with a licensed codec. It is also not definite that free audio players with support for MP3 are in violation in countries where the patents are enforced/enforceable as exceptions have been granted for decoding for this type of free or open source software. Despite all the above many distributions have decided to exclude playback or encoding anyway for one reason or another.