Spread Open Media/en/MailOgging: keep on Ogging!

From XiphWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search


SOM is about Open Media: being confident you will always have access to the information that matters to you. Whether that’s your favourite song, your holiday pictures, your diary or that embarrassing karaoke video, we think you should be able to use it wherever you take it. However, technology changes and is not subject to someone else’s whim. The good news is that the technology is already here and it’s available to everyone!

But this isn’t enough: for Open Media to work it needs to be there before you are and, no matter how good the technology is, we can’t do that without your help. How can you help? By choosing products that support free formats (many do, for instance the ever increasing number of music players supporting Vorbis), and by asking for products that support them. This is what the MailOgging project is for: pick a product which you wish supported free formats and ask for it, politely.

My current hobby is asking for Vorbis and FLAC from online music stores. Some independent sources, such as Pandora records and Creative Commons, have been supplying Vorbis for a long time, but big name stores are only beginning to realise that their customers hate DRM. This is the perfect time to ask them to provide free formats; see this letter to Play.com for ideas. Vorbis on the iTunes store? Maybe, if you keep on Ogging.