Comments on: Review: Amazon MP3 Downloader for Linux

By: peef

peef — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 23:33:54 +0000

64 bit users – work around

This is a bit ghetto but I run the windows version via wine to download albums. The GUI will crash if you try to use it but just passing in the location of the amz file (command line) will do the download. You can check the progress by mousing over the system tray thang.

Also, before doing this save a copy of the amz file since the downloader deletes it. And yes, you can use the amz file multiple times to download the mp3s.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 12:40:31 +0000

Linux users in the UK can download MP3s from play.com with no need for a specialist client. I fail to see why one is needed.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 17:24:51 +0000

Well, the downloader seemed to work great on my Gusty install but I did have an audio issue with one of the tracks of the album I got. Several loud audio pops in the track. It’s a fairly old album and who knows I was likely the first person to ever download that track or something. Anyway, I emailed tech support and they let me download the track again, same issue. File was exactly the same md5sum as the first so it is likely a bad file on the other side. So I let them know again and they gave me a $1.99 credit and said they told technicians about the issue and I could download the song in a few days again and see if it was fixed. Now, the solution I would have liked is re-enable the download of the song for me AND give me some credit. It seems rather silly to give me credit to spend on downloading the track I payed for already. I’m going to reply to them with that idea and see if they go for it.

If you want to see what the mp3 file looks like loaded into audacity then here’s the shot:

http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/6020/stelladelmattinobq0.png

By: PredatoryFern

PredatoryFern — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 14:04:05 +0000

Glad that Amazon has a good Linux music product. I may have to test it with .com/.ca versions. I know there shouldn’t be but I can’t find a lot of the items I look for on amazon.ca that I can on the .com one. It’s really annoying.

By: Wayne

Wayne — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:17:08 +0000

NIN on principle is what I had planned to buy, but I found something I liked.

By: PredatoryFern

PredatoryFern — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 00:10:00 +0000

I really hope Amazon starts putting out lossless files. Yeah, there’s no audible difference, but I like converting my files back and forth and archiving them.

I’m tempted to but NIN’s new release on principle, but I don’t really like their music.

By: Vadim P.

Vadim P. — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 15:36:33 +0000

I’m hoping they make a 64bit .deb.

By: Colin Dean

Colin Dean — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 18:04:14 +0000

@Harck: This is true. However, redownloading is an advantage of digital purchases. If my whole house burns, and I’ve lost everything I own, I can go back to Amazon and say, “Hey, I lost everything in a fire, but I bought music through you. May I redownload it?” I would hope that they would say yes. I wouldn’t expect anyone to provide me with a new physical copy because that’s far, far more costly than redownloading by several dollars.

I think it’s a matter of compassion and reasonability. Hell, if Amazon charged a dollar for redownloading an album, it’d probably be worth it. It’s a deterrent to keep people from downloading onto multiple computers while still allowing them to do so, and Amazon doesn’t lose money to 200 to 400 MB of bandwidth when a user does so.

By: Isaac

Isaac — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 16:22:57 +0000

An update on my Feisty situation! Apparently, accordingly to some users on the Ubuntu Forums, if you’re still on feisty and want to use this, just download and install the Debian Etch package. I tried it and it installed beautifully. I have not tried making a purchase as of yet though.

By: Harck

Harck — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 14:45:41 +0000

This is indeed really nice. At last some people realize that DRM s*cks and that Linux rules!

Unfortunately, this is restricted to US residents for the time being… But apparently they don’t make a check based on the IP location… I may try to download some to see and give you some feedback.

@Colin: if your CD collection burns, will your Music shop give you free copies of all your burned CD’s?