The Flow of Consciousness

I have joined a new group of people: those who have paid for music downloads.

I’ve had a T-Mobile G1 since November. It came with the Amazon MP3 application for Android pre-installed. This little application allows G1 users to search Amazon’s fast music catalog, then purchase and download DRM-less music.

One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to go a year without DRM. This makes Amazon MP3 quite attractive to me as I try to stay legal in my music acquisitions now that I have a job. I’ve avoided iTunes primarily because of its DRM-encumbered formats, but Apple recently decided to go DRM-less. However, personally identifiable information is still embedded in the download, raising privacy concerns. There’s also not a Linux version of iTunes—there is a Linux version of the Amazon MP3 downloader, which was recently updated to work on Ubuntu 8.10. I’ve included a little tutorial at the end of this entry to get Amazon MP3 Downloader for Linux working on Ubuntu 8.10 64-bit.

An important thing to note is that when I first added Festival Thyme to my download list, it didn’t complete, and I didn’t notice it for more than three weeks! When I tried again, the application said that the downloads had expired. Unhappy with my first digital download experience, I called Amazon just a few minutes ago, and the CSR was happy to reimburse me so I could try again.

This is the new best way to enjoy music. If I’m on the go, I search Amazon’s catalog using my T-Mobile G1 via EDGE or 3G service, add tracks or an entire album to my downloads list, then watch the songs download when next I connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi. This is the way music downloading should be: inexpensive, available everywhere, and, most of all, free of restrictions of DRM.

And now, the tutorial on installing Amazon MP3 Download for Linux on Ubuntu 8.10 64-bit.

First, download the Amazon MP3 Downloader package to your Desktop.

Second, install some packages from the command line, or by clicking on this apt-url link: sudo apt-get install libgtkmm-2.4-1c2a libboost-thread1.34.1 libboost-iostreams1.34.1 libboost-signals1.34.1 libboost-date-time1.34.1 libcurl3 libssl0.9.8 xdg-utils.

Third, do sudo dpkg --force-architecture -i amazonmp3.deb to install the package.

Fourth, ensure that the 32-bit libraries are installed by first installing getlibs (click to download and install with GDebi), then going to a command line and doing sudo getlibs $(which amazonmp3). This will download the 32-bit libraries which Amazon MP3 Downloader needs.

Amazon MP3 Downloader will be available in the Applications > Internet menu.

Good luck, and happy downloading.