Svens Blog

Some time has passed since I last blogged about the Amarok Amazon MP3 store integration. Much polishing has taken place since then. But during the last few days a few major features have shown up as well. And one might even kill a showstopper for Linux on the desktop for many users.

AMZ Downloader

Amazon really sucks in terms of usability. If you buy more than one music file they don't offer a package with several MP3s in it for download, but an encrypted .amz file with download instructions. Even worse: Their application to handle those is proprietary, buggy and seems to be broken on 64 bit systems. But fear no more, those dark times are over! I hereby present: AMZ Downloader, a small utility to make downloading from Amazon as easy as eating a pie.

The screenshots should tell you the rest:

Opening an .amz file is a matter of one click.

Downloading just takes another one.

From a technical point of view the AMZ Downloader is also quite interesting. It is a separate utility, only requiring Qt and clamz, a command line .amz downloader. So maybe we are going to see AMZ Downloader shipped with other music players than Amarok, too? We'll see.

Context view

But that's not all there is. Amarok now offers further infos about a selected item in the context view.

And it's not just viewing, it's browsing! Click on an artist name to browse through the store and discover other stuff from the artist. Clicking on a song adds it to the playlist. And you can also add a song to your shopping cart with one click.

Amarok Amazon URLs

This is possible thanks to Amarok Amazon URLs, which have been enhanced in latest git. This one for example searches for "Cure" in your store and that one adds a great album to your shopping cart. This could be a great area for script developers to play with...

So, you want it?

Check out git master or wait for Amarok 2.7, our most awesome release ever made!

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

folgendes ereignete sich mit dem beigelegten Gerät, seines Zeichens ehemals ein Haartrockner:

Als ich vergangenen Sonntag Vormittag nach einer wohltuenden Dusche das bisher zuverlässig Warmluft spendende Werkzeug im Wohnzimmer an eine Steckdose anschloss hatte ich noch keine Ahnung von dem Übel und Grauen, das mich und meine zwei Katzen gleich darauf ereilen sollte.  Während ich fönenderweise an den Morgenkaffee zum wach werden dachte, hegte der Haartrockner offenbar andere Pläne und beschloss, neben meinem rechten Ohr, seinen Dienst einzustellen. Bekannt gab er dies effektvoll durch einen lauten Knall, Funkenschlag und einer kleinen, der Größe des Ereignisses jedoch angemessenen, Rauchwolke.

Keine Angst, weder meinen Katzen noch mir ist dabei etwas Ernsthaftes passiert. Nur der Computer im Wohnzimmer stellte seine Musikbeschallung auf Grund mangelnder Stromversorgung auf Grund einer herausgeflogenen Sicherung auf Grund eines explodierenden Haarföns zur Dramaturgie passend ein. Auch konnte ich keinen kausalen Zusammenhang zwischen dem Verhalten des Föns und dem am gleichen Tag stattgefundenen Wasserrohrbruch in der Küche herstellen. Schade eigentlich. ;-) Immerhin konnte ich mir den Morgenkaffee sparen, denn wach war ich nun.

Wie telefonisch besprochen sende ich den Übeltäter unfrei an seinen Geburtsort zurück. Ich wünsche viel Spaß bei der Obduktion, besonders empfehle ich einen Blick auf die Innereien unterhalb des Gebläsestärkekippschalters. Am oberen Teil des Schalters kann man schöne Verbrennungsspuren, hervorgerufen durch herausschlagende Funken, vorfinden.

Über ein Austauschgerät würde ich mich sehr freuen, denn bei diesen Temperaturen würde ich ungern mit nassen Haaren auf der Straße herumlaufen müssen.

Das geht jetzt so an den Hersteller, alternativ hätte ich die Garantiekarte suchen und ausfüllen können...

Amarok 2.5 "Earth Moving" has just been released. So now it's time to have a look at all the exciting new features, as looking at bugfixes (which are important for sure) can be considered boring for a blog. ;-)

For Amarok 2.5 I have been working on integrating the Amazon MP3 store. The aim is to integrate it like any other collection. And as you are about to see we are already quite close.

You can find the service by first clicking Internet in the Media Sources panel...

...where you can select MP3 Music Store.

And here we are. The service should have asked you for your location, as mp3 downloads sadly are not available worldwide but only in selected countries. And at the moment you are only allowed to download songs from your local store.

The service first loads some recommended albums (the entries on the top with the disc icon) and songs (below, with a musical note as icon). I am going to use that view now to present you some basic features. For example you can add a track to your playlist, as if it was part of your local collection. Be aware that Amazon does not offer complete previews, but 30 second snippets:

The service automatically loads the album cover of a song and shows it in the playlist. For some tracks this does not yet work, but that should be fixed in a few days:

You can add tracks as usually using drag and drop, the popup dropper that fades over the context area or by using the context menu, which offers some more actions:

For tracks you can not only add the preview to the playlist but also search for the album the track is on and of course add it to your shopping cart.

Albums also allow searching for their contents:

The result might lool like this:

Finally I also added nice tooltips, so you can easily disinguish the same track from several albums in different versions:

When adding an item (album or track) to the shopping cart you get a small notification below the service:

And of course you can search for whatever songs, artists, albums or audio books you like:

Our shopping cart, you can call it by pressing the button below the service,  is quite basic, but works fine:

Removing items ia a matter of pressing the delete key or calling the context menu of an item:

The item is then being removed, the shopping cart value updated:

Finally pressing "checkout" in the main window or the shopping cart opens the Amazon site in your default browser, where Amazon asks you for confirmation to really add these items to your shopping cart:

Sadly due to API limitations this does not work that easily for Amazon.com.

For downloading the actual tracks you need the Amazon MP3 downloader, Clamz or Banshee. Our own downloader will be ready for Amarok 2.6.

And of course Amarok gets a share of the profits made by this service.

This concludes our short tour. Have fun rediscovering your music! :-)

PS: The API we are using is also available for other projects.

...aber leider nur als "nichtöffentliche Petition". Genaueres gibt es auf einer improvisierten Seite zum Thema.

Meine bereits erwähnte Petition zur Offenlegung von ACTA wurde angenommen. Eigentlich ein Grund zum Jubeln. Und: das eigentliche Ziel der Petition wurde auch erreicht. zusammen wäre das ein Grund für eine wilde Party. Doch Feierlaune will nicht so ganz aufkommen. Und das aus zwei Gründen:

• wegen dem Timing der beiden Veröffentlichungen: der gleiche Tag kann einfach kein Zufall sein und
• weil sich sämtliche Befürchtungen bezüglich ACTA im veröffentlichten Text bestätigt haben.

Den ersten Punkt möchte ich hier begründen.

Ich habe die Petition am 31.1.2010 eingereicht. Mehrmals habe ich beim Petitionsausschuss angerufen, um zu verhindern, dass sie wegen möglicher Formfehler oder ähnlichem nicht zugelassen wird. Abgelehnt (!) wurde sie am 9.3.2010, ohne dass ich die Möglichkeit hatte irgendwas an ihr zu ändern. Die "Begründung" habe ich hier auf meinem Blog veröffentlicht. Noch am gleichen Tag habe ich eine leicht überarbeitete Variante erneut eingesendet: die Änderungen waren im Wesentlichen rein redaktioneller Art, um mögliche Missverständnisse auszuräumen. Diese wurde schließlich am gleichen Tag wie die ACTA-Dokumente freigegeben. Interessanterweise wusste ich über Nachfragen von Jörg Tauss schon vorher, dass eine zu meiner ersten Petition "sehr ähnliche" "bald" freigeschaltet werden würde... Kann da dieses Timing noch ein Zufall sein?

Was bedeutet dies? Nun, zuallererst wird die Petition kaum mediale Aufmerksamkeit erhalten. Denn wer zeichnet schon eine Aufforderung mit, die bereits erfüllt ist? Das heißt aber auch: das Thema ACTA wird weiter nur in Expertenkreisen diskutiert werden. Und hier sind wir uns schon lange einig, die breite Masse hingegen weiß noch nicht einmal, dass ACTA existiert.

Ich habe am Tag der Freischaltung auch gleich eine Petition zur Ablehnung von ACTA durch die Bundesregierung eingereicht. Kurz und knapp, auf das absolute Minimum beschränkt, sodass eine Prüfung eine Sache von Minuten sein sollte. Wollen wir schätzen wie viele Monate es diesmal dauert?

Petition 11518:

Der Deutsche Bundestag möge beschließen die Bundesregierung dazu aufzufordern, das Anti-Piraterieabkommen ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) und weitere Verhandlungen diesbezüglich (auch auf EU-Ebene) abzulehnen.

Begründung:
Die im ACTA-Abkommen vorgeschlagenen Maßnahmen wie Internetfilter sind als unverhältnismäßig und unwirksam abzulehnen. Dazu besitzen sie ein enormes Missbrauchspotential.

Zum Schluss mein Aufruf: zeichnet die Petition zur Offenlegung von ACTA trotzdem mit! So zeigen wir, dass die Offenlegung ein richtiger Schritt war und dass sich derartige Themen nicht unter den Tisch kehren lassen. Bereits jetzt ist sie eine richtig gut laufende Petition: über 300 Mitzeichner an einem Tag sind schon relativ selten.

Gerade habe ich folgenden Schrieb vom Petitionsausschuss erhalten (Tippfehler sind von mir, er kam auf totem Baum):

Sehr geehrter Herr Krohlas,

für Ihr Schreiben danke ich Ihnen.

Dazu teile ich mit, dass Ihre Eingabe nicht veröffentlicht wird. Zu Ihrem Anliegen nehme ich wie folgt Stellung:

Der Handel mit gefälschten Produkten hat sich in den letzten jahren weltweit zu einem ernst zu nehmenden Problem entwickelt. Mit dem geplanten internationalen Handelsabkommen gegen Produktpiraterie (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, ACTA) soll ein sicherer und effizienter rechtlicher Rahmen für die internationale Bekämpfung der Produkt- und Markenpiraterie geschaffen werden.

Über das Abkommen verhandeln seit 2008 die Europäische Union, Australien, Japan, Kanada, die Republik Korea, Mexiko, Marokko, Neuseeland, Singapur, die Schweiz und die USA. Es haben bisher sechs Verhandlungsrunden stattgefunden. Die Mitgliedsstaaten der Europäischen Union haben der Kommission der Europäischen Union sowie der jeweiligen Ratspräsidentschaft ein Mandat für die Verhandlungen erteilt. Die Bundesregierung nimmt in der im Verhandlungsmandat vorgesehenen Form auf die Verhandlungsposition der Kommission Einfluss. Sie hat zudem als Beobachter an den bisherigen Verhandlungsrunden teilgenommen.

Die noch vorläufigen Verhandlungsdokumente werden - wie auch sonst bei Verhandlungen zu Handelsabkommen üblich - von der Europäischen Union nicht der Öffentlichkeit zugänglich gemacht. Die Europäische Kommission informiert die Öffentlichkeit über den Fortgang der Verhandlungen auf ihrer Webseite. Sie aht am 23. Juni 2008 und am 28. April 2009 Anhörungen der beteiligten Kreise durchgeführt.

Die Bundesregierung kommt ihrer Unterrichtspflicht nach § 4 i.V.m § 3 Abs. 1 Nr. 5 des Gesetzes zur Änderung des Gesetzes über die Zusammenarbeit von Bundesregierung und Deutschem Bundestag in Angelegenheiten der Europäischen Union (EUZBBG) nach. Der Deutsche Budnestag wird darüber hinaus nach § 4 i.V.m. § 5 Abs. 1 Nr. 3 EUZBBG durch die Berichte der Ständigen Vertretung der Bundesrepublik bei der Europäischen Union über die Sitzungen des Ausschusses für Handelspolitik nach Art. 207 Abs. 3 UAbs. 3 AEUV informiert. Die Bundesregierung ist hierbei verpflichtet, sich an die von den Verhandlungspartnern vereinbarte Vertraulichkeit der Verhandlungsdokumente zu halten.

Es ist nicht zu erwarten, dass die Bundesregierung während der noch andauernden Verhandlungen Medienberichte zu ACTA kommentieren wird. Im Hinblick auf die Verhandlungen dringt Deutschland darauf, dass die Ergebnisse nicht zu einem Änderungsbedarf bei bestehenden europarechtlichen Festlegungen zur Durchsetzun von Rechten des geistigen Eigentums in der digitalen Welt führen werden. Diese Zielrichtung wird von den anderen Mitgliedsstaaten und der Kommission geteilt. Beim derzeitigen Verhandlungsstand ist nicht davon auszugehen, dass die Regelungen der E-Commerce-Richtlinie (Richtlinie 2000/31/EG) zur Verantwortlichkeit der Internet-Vermittler wie Access-, Caching- und Hosting-Anbieter, die in Deutschland im Telemediengesetz umgesetzt sind, durch ACTA beeinträchtigt werden. Die Bundesregierung lehnt darüber hinaus Internetsperren bei möglichen Urheberrechtsverletzungen als falschen Weg zur Bekämpfung dieser Verstöße ab und wird sich für diese Position, falls nötig, auch in den Verhandlungen zu ACTA einsetzen.

Anhang: Drucksache 17/186, eine kleine Anfrage einiger LINKE-Abgeordneten zum Verhandlungsstand bei ACTA, vom 10.12.2009.

Meine Meinung: Es wurde kein Stück darauf eingegangen, dass Deutschland eines der wenigen Länder ist, die sich gegen eine Offenlegung ausgesrochen haben. Stattdessen wird auch die Vertraulichkeit der Verhandlungen hingewisen. Hier haben wir einen Kreisschluss: denn Deutschland selbst ist zu weiten Teilen für diese Vertraulichkeit verantwortlich! Die Ablehnungsbegründung ist damit in meinen Augen wertlos.

So, FOSDEM is over now and I finally have the time to have a look back.

As I already said I was there one day earlier, so I could do something else but promoting Amarok for one day: visiting the European Parliament. The EP was located about 30 minutes by foot from the hotel. I can really recommend not always using the metro or tram lines: with that you only see some spots of the city but are never able to connect them. Walking from one point to another really helps to get some orientation, so afterwards you are able to find your ways quite easily.

Anyway, I arrived at the EP a few minutes before 10 AM, to meet with Erik Josefsson, member of the EP for the Green party, at one of the (afaik) two accreditation centers. Some minutes later, after passing those airport like security checks, not Erik but Christian Engström showed up. As you might know he is the first Pirate ever in the EP after the election result of more than 7% in Sweden. So in his office we talked about the current state of netpolitics in Sweden, Germany and the EU. Things like data retention (very interesting for Sweden atm, as they were just successfully sued by the EU for not making that into national law), ACTA, or the SWIFT treaty with the US (that the EP will very likely reject no matter what Hillary Clinton says). So in general: all those things that are about to attack the base of our security: freedom. Also some election campain ideas were exchanged in our discussion.

Anyway, he still had to do some paperwork so he suggested to bring me into a "hearing" of the "Digital Rights Group". Well, I didn't seem to remember the name, but the agenda was very interesting: all kinds of netpolitics. So i agreed to go there, of course. Which would really not have been possible for me alone at all, as all the hallways in those buildings seem to look exactly the same. You can get lost there sooo easily.

On arrival Christian showed me Erik, who was sitting on the conference table of the meeting room. Also Amelia Andersdotter was there, the second Pirate in the EP (since the signing of the Lissabon treaty Sweden has two more seats) and afaik the youngest ever. As all visitor seats were taken I just sat down on the floor and listened to what they have to say. The discussion was really inspiring, it was about data retention at that moment. The people on the conference table, which I thought were members of the EP, were asing somebody from the European Commission (I knew the face but not the name...) many very, very critical questions. One thing hat came up to me during that: does something like "anonymized data" actually exist at all? I'm gonna write about the problems I see there later in another post.

I was surprised: the Council  and Commission have not yet arrived in the Lissabon treaty times and still don't accept the EPs new powers, or at least they try to ignore it all the time. So i expected critical questions. But not THAT critical. After some time I got even more confused: one person with the same kind of name tag as me, so appearently another visitor, was allowed to ask a question directly to the representative of the Commission. So clearly I had the wrong impression of where I was.

Well, during lunch break Erik explained to me that this was a meeting of all kinds of netpolitics organizations. In fact this was part of a two days conference, for the first time ever those groups hat the chance to meet directly inside the EP buildings. So before FOSDEM I accidently took part in another conference. ;-)
The afternoon was very interesting then: as there was a free seat directly at the conference table I could go, from the introduction I learned that there were people from netzpolitik.org, La Quadrature Du Net, AK Zensur, Pirate International and others. Someone even came up to me saying: "Hey, I know you, you are with the German Pirates.". Completely right, but I'm only a normal member there, We both had no ideas where he could have seen me.

In the afternoon we made a list of current and upcoming topics that will influence digital rights massively. I will put then into a separate blog entry, as the list is not that short and I suppose not everyone reading the Amarok-Feed of my blog is deeply into politics.

So to come to an end to that political stuff: it was a very, very interesting day, thanks to Christian, Amelia and Erik for making that possible.

The FOSDEM beer event then took place again at the Delerium Café in the center of the city. New beers I tried this time: cactus and coconut. Well, if you are into those lemon bricks that can be put into the toilet to make it smell better cactus is the beer for you! It smells exactly this way and tastes... as you would expect it to taste! Everyone on the table agreed. But: it makes a good start for funny conversations. Coconut on the other hand is fine: smells and tastes like coconut, is kind of sweet and gets served in a bowl looking like half a coconut. Very nice. :)

FOSDEM itself (wasn't this blog entry planned to be about FOSDEM?) was really good as well: many visitors as always, many people were interested in Amarok and our shirts at the booth. My talk filled the dev room completely, so the "closed" signs had to be put on the doors to stop people from entering. This morning I saw a mail on the list saying:

Sven really kicked ass holding one of the most entertaining and informative talks

Thanks a lot!

I really like to keep my talks open for discussion, and that worked perfectly this time. So check the mailing list for the resulting ideas.

Ok, just to let everyone know: I arrived in Brussels, where I will give a talk about Amarok on Saturday at FOSDEM. At 17:30, iirc.

The flight was quite interesting (well, I don't fly that much, generally I try to avoid it due to the environmental issues): there were just eleven passengers on board. And it was so short that I had to empty my free drink fast as they announced the landing procedure.

Also quite funny: meeting people at the airport and seeing them a few minutes later again near the Grande Place. You're spying on me, aren't you? ;-)

I guess for the first time in my life someone tried to rob me. You know, you're standing there, looking at the map, then this guy shows up, saying something you don't understand (that's the moment paranoia level goes up to the max), starts swiping your jacket (check: no other strangers in the range of two meters), he tries to make you understand that some liquid was on the jacked (ok, now everything is clear as water...), wants you to take it off (let's play a little game...), tries to hold it in his hands (you know that I know your plans, there's nothing of any value in it and your friends five meters away won't get closer because I already spotted them...), and then walks away (Ha! Giving up already?). Fun. :-) So remember: keep anything of value in places that cannot be reached in a matter of seconds.

The hotel was relatively easy to find but I have to confess it's totally not my style. First they required me to fill out a form. A form asking for name (so far, so good), birth date (it gets interesting), home address, profession (you see where it goes?), nationality, identity card or passport number (!!!), the authority that delivered that passport, date of arrival, number on your motor-vehicles plate, other family members: wife (including maiden name!), number of children (what the hell do you want to do to my non existent children?), date of departure and something I didn't get, I suppose the current date.

If I had a wife and would check in together with her that information would be enough to open a bank account in her name in Germany! Why the hell do they ask all those questions? The guy at the reception said the law required it. "Controlle des voyageurs dans les hotels et maisons d'herbergement" is the title of the form and according to him also the name of the law. Can anybody verify this? I'm quite sure that can't be legal from a human rights point of view. Never ever!

Of course I tried to cheat a bit: I gave them both my nationalities, but in the German short form. And I didn't try to give them a good handwriting of the number of my Swedish passport. If you know my handwriting you know what that means. This should be good enough to confuse automated systems that work on this data.

Oh, and I took a blank one of those forms with me. Really, there something has to be done. Any Belgian pirates reading this? I am not too paranoid on this, am I?

If I don't show up tomorrow then they brought me to Guantanamo. ;-) After asking those critical questions I paid cash, for which I earned a surprised look. Hey, I only want to live my life without being monitored, but if I do I'm automatically being looked at suspiciously.

Internet costs 2.50 euros per 30 minutes, a day is 10 euros. Oh, and the clock starts ticking the moment you log in. Logging out seems not to be implemented yet. Funny people. The room for the night I'm early is also more expensive than I thought, 129 euros. Well, I'm sure they pay a developer to implement a fair accounting system for their wireless. They do, they do, they do! *putting fingers in my ears* Lalalalala... So if you can read this it's very likely I used their wireless for a lot of money (Update: I have and they combined my freshly received account data with my room number... hello European data retention regulations!). According to Wireshark no one else logged in in the last three hours. ;-(

Apart from that Brussels hasn't changed much. I found some waffles in a supermarket (maybe I should get some beer there tomorrow to bring it home) and a nice Italian restaurant with cheap prices. At least for Brussels, in Karlsruhe 10 Euros for a lasagne would still be quite expensive. But it was very good and I had a chance to practise my rusty French a bit. Oh, and the Celtica club (more like a Irish bar with live music and DJ) someone recommended to me is also just around the corner. same for the Delerium Café, where the beer event will take place.

Plan for tomorrow: visiting the European Parliament together with some Swedish members from the Pirate and Green parties. And later today I'm gonna try out that bath tub, I haven't had a warm bath since I moved out of my parents flat years ago. So that has to be used then. :)

Just a few days ago (yeah, might already be old news for some people out there) I released version 1.3.2 of the Free Music Charts integration for Amarok. This one is required to work properly with Amarok 2.2.

The FMC are a monthly internet radio charts show where only open music is allowed to take part. You can chose five songs from usually five newcomers and the best 15 tracks of last month to vote for. All songs can be downloaded and redistributed freely. You can get the script from the Amarok Script Manager (try the "Get more scripts" button) or from kde-apps.org.

As usualy: if you want to see the latest developments in git master and talk to the developers of your favorite media player: join us at OpenExpo in Winterthur, Switzerland. Oh, and of course we have Amarok shirts with us. :)