Windows Media Player, is the first media player and media library application that Microsoft developed to play audio and video on personal computers. It has been a component of the Microsoft Windows operating system, including Windows 9x, Windows NT, Pocket PC, and Windows Mobile. Microsoft also released editions of Windows Media Player for classic Mac OS, Mac OS X, and Solaris, but has since discontinued them.
FLAC is an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio, developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation, and is also the name of the free software project producing the FLAC tools, the reference software package that includes a codec implementation. Digital audio compressed by FLAC's algorithm can typically be reduced to between 50 and 70 percent of its original size and decompresses to an identical copy of the original audio data.
The demoscene is an international computer art subculture focused on producing demos: self-contained, sometimes extremely small, computer programs that produce audiovisual presentations. The purpose of a demo is to show off programming, visual art, and musical skills. Demos and other demoscene productions are shared at festivals known as demoparties, voted on by those who attend and released online.
A digital music store is a business that sells digital audio files of music recordings over the Internet. Customers gain ownership of a license to use the files, in contrast to a music streaming service, where they listen to recordings without gaining ownership. Customers pay either for each recording or on a subscription basis. Online music stores generally also offer partial streaming previews of songs, with some songs even available for full length listening. They typically show a picture of the album art or of the performer or band for each song. Some online music stores also sell recorded speech files, such as podcasts, and video files of movies.
Magnatune is an American independent record label based in Berkeley, California, founded in spring 2003. It only sold music for download through its website but added a print-CD-on-demand service in late 2004 and in October 2007 began selling complete albums and individual tracks through Amazon.com. In May 2008, Magnatune launched all-you-can-eat membership plans. From March 2010 Magnatune dropped the CD printing service and moved exclusively to all-you-can-eat membership plans. Magnatune was the first record label to license music online and as of May 2015 had sold over 7,000 licenses in its twelve years of existence.
AllOfMP3, MP3Sparks and MemphisMembers are brands of online music store that were operated by Mediaservices, Inc., a company founded in 2000 in Moscow, Russia. The stores formerly sold music encoded in standard, non-protected audio formats at a significantly lower cost than other online music stores. In 2008, the original AllOfMp3 site was replaced by a blog.
eMusic is an online music and audiobook store that operates by subscription. In exchange for a monthly subscription eMusic users can download a fixed number of MP3 tracks per month. eMusic was established in 1998, is headquartered in New York City with an office in London, and is owned by TriPlay.
The Kosmic Free Music Foundation was a worldwide group of computer musicians, artists, and coders focused on the PC demoscene. Most members were from the United States, Canada, and Australia. They created music—mostly techno, trance, and ambient—with tracker software. They also created some artwork and demos. All their productions were available to download without charge from BBSes and the internet. In the 1990s, they were known for having many of the tracking scene's top musicians as members. Their early presence on the Internet made them one of the first netlabels. The leader of Kosmic was Dan Nicholson, who went by the alias Maelcum.
50 Foot Wave is an American alternative rock band, formed in 2003. The band is fronted by Kristin Hersh, who writes the group's songs with collaborative efforts from the other group members in composing and arranging the music. The group's name is a reference to both an illustration and the term for the 50-foot sound wave of the lowest F tone audible to the human ear. The band sometimes abbreviates its name as L'~, using the Roman numeral for 50.
Module file is a family of music file formats originating from the MOD file format on Amiga systems used in the late 1980s. Those who produce these files and listen to them form the worldwide MOD scene, a part of the demoscene subculture.
Zunior.com is a Canadian online independent record label and music store founded in 2004 by Dave Ullrich, formerly of The Inbreds.
Digital distribution, also referred to as content delivery, online distribution, or electronic software distribution, among others, is the delivery or distribution of digital media content such as audio, video, e-books, video games, and other software.
BitTorrent is a proprietary adware BitTorrent client developed by Bram Cohen and Rainberry, Inc. used for uploading and downloading files via the BitTorrent protocol. BitTorrent was the first client written for the protocol. It is often nicknamed Mainline by developers denoting its official origins. Since version 6.0 the BitTorrent client has been a rebranded version of μTorrent. As a result, it is no longer open source. It is currently available for Microsoft Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android. There are currently two versions of the software, "BitTorrent Classic" which inherits the historical version numbering, and "BitTorrent Web", which uses its own version numbering.
A promotional recording, promo, or plug copy is an audio or video recording distributed free, usually in order to promote a recording that is or soon will be commercially available. Promos are normally sent directly to broadcasters, such as music radio and television stations, and to tastemakers, such as DJs, music journalists, and critics, in advance of the release of commercial editions, in the hope that airplay, reviews, and other forms of exposure will result and stimulate the public's interest in the commercial release.
OnClassical is an Italian independent record label. It features classical music mostly for single instrument or chamber ensemble.
A tag editor is an app that can add, edit, or remove embedded metadata on multimedia file formats. Content creators, such as musicians, photographers, podcasters, and video producers, may need to properly label and manage their creations, adding such details as title, creator, date of creation, and copyright notice.
Kahvi is a netlabel founded in 1998 and currently operated by 4T Thieves. Based in Helsinki, Finland, it aims to release music in the Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV and video formats to anyone online on various distribution sites such as Bandcamp, Mixcloud, Scene.org and the Kahvi website. The label has always had a strong connection with the demoscene, and is one among several well-known netlabels, such as Monotonik.
Goto80 is a Swedish music artist and researcher. He has been described as one of the key players between glitch and chipmusic, as well as an active demoscener. At the turn of the millennium he was one of the first to bring chipmusic to a wider audience, and was also an early adopter of live Game Boy music. He has an extensive back catalogue of free music – often open source – with a wide span of musical influences. He currently focuses on research and art, and maintains a number of blogs and labels such as Chipflip and the text-mode tumblr.
HDtracks is a high-resolution digital music store offering DRM-free music in multiple formats as well as cover art with audio CD-quality and high-definition audio master recording quality download selections.
Since the mid-2000s, a counterculture has taken place where numerous netlabels, online labels that release their music for free, located in Japan have been formed and garnered a huge amount of publicity which, according to writer Patrick St. Michel, has shaped how popular Japanese music is produced. Japan's netlabel phenomenon was the first time in the history of the nation's music industry where underground musicians could produce their works however they wanted to and have their music noticed by the public; this is an aspect that was previously absent at a time when major labels in the country followed a conservative method where they managed how artists would produce their music. Starting in the 2010s, the netlabel scene has crossed over to the mainstream music landscape and all across the world, with netlabel producers transitioning into working for bigger labels and western producers like Cashmere Cat and Ryan Hemsworth being influenced by the music of Japanese netlabels.
