Once you ditch cable and rely on DVDs and streaming, you realize two things: TV channels as we now know them are an incredibly obsolete idea, and that the differences between DVDs and digital (and the insistence of the entertainment industry on physical media and copy protection) is misguided when it comes to technology—really misguided.

Read more:  Digital vs. More Digital

At launch, the store will only sell digital music.  We feel strongly about digital music formats being a better option for consumers than CDs.  And we also feel strongly that DRM is anti-consumer to its very core, and you will never find us supporting it.

That said, we aren’t ruling out the eventual sale of physical media, including Compact Discs and especially Vinyl.  We’re just not making it a priority.

Now, digital formats can be a funny topic, because a lot of people think digital music is MP3 and vice versa, so when I say “digital formats” with such confident plurality people are already confused.  Well it’s true, there are several to choose from, and if you ask me, MP3 is not the best of them.  In addition to being a lossy compression scheme, there are licensing problems involved with the technology.  It’s not included in the most popular Linux distribution, Ubuntu, due to these restrictions.

Of course MP3 does have almost universal support going for it, so you can bet it’s the first format we’re going to launch with.  At launch, it may be the only one but, sooner or later, it will be joined by several other options, including a favorite alternative of mine, Ogg Vorbis. Ogg, as it’s colloquially called, is not only free (as in speech, not beer) but it lets us get away with smaller files for the same or better quality.  Pretty cool.

We have some other formats in mind, with their own advantages and drawbacks, but let’s save that discussion for another time.

Do you have a format we should think about offering?  Want to share some thoughts on the topic?  Comment below (don’t forget to Register so you don’t have to enter your info every time) or send us an email!