Windows Media Player (WMP) 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.
The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,000 TV shows, and 65,000 films. When it opened, it was the only legal digital catalog of music to offer songs from all five major record labels.
Puretracks was a Canadian online music store, which launched officially on October 14, 2003. Puretracks works as a behind-the-scene music partner. Now a division of Somerset Entertainment, owned by Fluid Music, Puretracks has U.S. and Canadian licensing agreements with all major labels and hundreds of independent labels worldwide—enabling them to offer well over three million top music tracks across every genre. The majority of music is sold at 256 to 320 kbit/s MP3 files.
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.
FairPlay is a digital rights management (DRM) technology developed by Apple Inc. It is built into the MP4 multimedia file format as an encrypted AAC audio layer, and was used until April 2009 by the company to protect copyrighted works sold through iTunes Store, allowing only authorized devices to play the content.
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.
Microsoft PlaysForSure was a certification given by Microsoft to portable devices and content services that had been tested against several hundred compatibility and performance requirements. These requirements include codec support, Digital rights management support, UI responsiveness, device performance, compatibility with Windows Media Player, synchronization performance, and so on. PlaysForSure certification was available for portable media players, network-attached digital media receivers, and media-enabled mobile phones. The PlaysForSure logo was applied to device packaging as well as to online music stores and online video stores.
Napster, commonly known as “Napster 2.0”, was a music streaming service and digital music store, launched by Roxio in 2003 under the purchased name and trademarks of former free peer-to-peer file sharing software Napster in the aftermath of the latter's 2002 bankruptcy and subsequent shut down after a series of legal actions taken by the RIAA. Roxio purchased Napster and a music streaming service called PressPlay in 2003, to create a new legal online music service that lets users access music through a subscription or on a fee-per-song basis. Napster was later acquired by Best Buy. The service was acquired by rival Rhapsody in 2011.
Yahoo! Music Jukebox, formerly known as Yahoo! Music Engine, was a freeware music player released by Yahoo! in 2005 to compete with iTunes and Rhapsody in the digital music market. Developed side-by-side with MusicMatch Jukebox, another music player acquired by Yahoo! in 2004, it was designed to be the main client for Yahoo's array of music services, which were centered around Yahoo! Music Unlimited, a paid music streaming service and digital music store; in addition to being a music management software. In early 2008 Yahoo! sold off its music assets, including Yahoo! Music Jukebox to RealNetworks' Rhapsody and replaced it with a web-based music player.
Yahoo! Music Unlimited was an on-demand online music service launched on May 10, 2005 and provided by Yahoo! Music. The service was discontinued on September 30, 2008.
MOG was a paid subscription online music service and blog network, where subscribers could listen to and read about music. Subscribers could play tracks available in its catalog on a variety of digital devices, including computers, handheld devices, Sonos systems and television. MOG also allowed users to access aggregated editorial content from music blogs, user posts, and in-house editors.
Zune is a discontinued media management software program for Microsoft Windows that functions as a full media player application with a library, an interface to the Zune Marketplace, and as a media streaming server. The software is used to sync with all devices with Zune functionality including the Zune 4, 8, 16, 30, 80, 120, Zune HD, Windows Phone 7, and Microsoft Kin. Zune devices work exclusively with the Zune software, which applies many design principles of Microsoft's Metro design language.
The online service imeem was a social media website where users interacted with each other by streaming, uploading and sharing music and music videos. It operated from 2003 until 2009 when it was shut down after being acquired by MySpace.
Amazon Music is a music streaming platform and online music store operated by Amazon. As of January 2020, the service had 55 million subscribers.
A digital copy is a commercially distributed computer file containing a media product such as a film or music album. The term contrasts this computer file with the physical copy with which the digital copy is usually offered as part of a bundle. It allows the disc's purchaser to acquire a single copy of the film on a digital device such as a personal computer, smartphone, tablet computer, or digital media player, and view it on those devices without requiring access to the physical media. "Digital copy" is also commonly referred to as "Digital HD".
Total Music was a digital music distribution service created by Universal Music Group and Sony BMG. It was started in 2007 and closed down in 2009. The venture never actually resulted in any products or services used by consumers.
PlayNow was Sony Ericsson's download service for media that included music, games, ringtones, wallpapers and themes. It was introduced in February 2004 as a way for owners of SE phones to listen to and directly purchase ringtones. It was rolled out into 32 countries. The Sony Ericsson S700 was the first Sony Ericsson phone to come pre-loaded with PlayNow.
Bell Video Store was the premium Internet video-on-demand service offered by Bell Sympatico. It had a French language equivalent, LaBanqueVideo/Boutique video Bell. It started in Beta mode on 4 May 2007 and offered movies, television shows and music videos/concerts for $1.99 and up, with a pricing structure similar to that of iTunes by Apple Computer and Unbox by Amazon. A purchase included a full resolution video file with the rights to download on up to 4 devices. The Bell Video Store ceased operations on 15 July 2009. Movies were not available for purchase or rent after 15 June 2009.
UltraViolet was a cloud-based digital rights locker for films and television programs that allowed consumers to store proofs-of-purchase of licensed content in an account to enable playback on different devices using multiple applications from several different streaming services. UltraViolet also allowed users to share access to their library with up to five additional people. UltraViolet was deployed by the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), an alliance of 85 companies that includes film studios, retailers, consumer electronics manufacturers, cable television companies, internet service providers (ISPs), internet hosting vendors, and other internet systems and security vendors, with the notable exceptions of Walt Disney Studios, Google, Amazon and Apple.
Didiom was a digital media company that specialized in the development of streaming media applications and wireless content delivery platforms. Built on peer-to-peer placeshifting technology, the company's flagship product allowed customers to stream their home computer's audio collection to their phone wirelessly, eliminating the need for data cables and memory cards. With two million songs under its management, Didiom previously launched an on-device music store that allowed customers to name their own prices for music downloads. In February 2011, Didiom was acquired by SnapOne, Inc.
