Amazon MP3 Store Legitimizes DoubleTwist Darknet

07
Oct

Amazon MP3 Store Legitimizes DoubleTwist Darknet

author: editor category: ReadWriteWeb

The blogosphere is abuzz with news of doubleTwist’s latest “music store” release. While many are weighing in on the merits of the Amazon MP3-powered store, we shouldn’t lose sight of what this actually represents. The Amazon partnership legitimizes and monetizes a startup company that is still arguably a darknet file sharing service.

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Hacker “DVD Jon” Lech Johansen launched doubleTwist in 2008 to circumvent restrictive DRM and provide multi-device compatibility. Often when media player companies strive for “device compatibility” they are already compatible with most major devices and are simply looking to sync with the iPhone. The iPhone has proven elusive due to Apple’s device encryption tactics. While companies like Songbird have built iPhone workarounds, DoubleTwist actually offers iPhone syncing directly from the player. In an effort to juxtapose its open format stance against Apple’s proprietary file silos, doubleTwist launched the above video with the tag line “doubleTwist offers choice”. In other words, when you download a file through doubleTwist’s new Amazon store, you are given the choice to load it on to any device you own.

While the store is a great new feature, it will be interesting to see if users choose to purchase more or if they simply continue to share files amongst each other. While it’s true that you can drag and drop into the device of their choice, you can also drag and drop files into your friend’s folders as well as share files on Facebook, YouTube and Flickr. To check out the desktop store and service, download the Mac version here. The Windows version is expected to be released in the near future.

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