Some 30,000 songs from the legendary Smithsonian Folkways catalog - field recordings of folk and blues, world and children's music, jazz, nature sounds and poetry - went on sale yesterday on Microsoft's MSN Music store for 99 cents apiece.
MSN Music, which began selling music last fall, will have the exclusive right to sell the Smithsonian catalog through September, executives at Microsoft and Smithsonian Folkways said.
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The tracks are encoded in the Windows Media format, which is readable by many portable music devices but not Apple's iPod. Single songs cost 99 cents and compete albums $8.91. The Smithsonian gets about two-thirds of the purchase price of the music, Mr. Sonneborn [S-F Assistant Director] said.
When the agreement with Microsoft expires, Mr. Sonneborn said, the Smithsonian hopes to begin its own music download service, with more extensive text and documentation features.
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From another list: "Problems with Mac operation can be solved by using Firefox as your browser and changing your system prefs to open up all mp3s in iTunes, if it's not there already. No problems at all using Windows machines. The "Synchrotext" component of the site is particularly fascinating, but the individual tunes are what will pique your interest."