[ubuntu-uk] Banshee (& music players generally)

[Rowan Berkeley]

In my own case, virtually all my music files are labelled and tagged
according to my own system, which doesn't correspond to anybody's
database, so it's a waste of time, and in any case they are mainly grey
labels, demos, unreleased tracks, and such. But anyone with a big
library of ripped commercial albums might find this interesting, since
the process of cover-art-seeking is non-voluntary and starts as soon as
you populate Banshee's library: "Where does Banshee get its cover art?
Banshee looks first in the audio file itself for embedded artwork, then
in the folder the file is in, then from Rhapsody, then Amazon, then
finally Last.fm." RealNetworks acquired Rhapsody on Aug 3 2003. The
Rhapsody service was briefly known as RealRhapsody shortly after the
acquisition, but has since shortened back to Rhapsody. Downloaded files
come with restrictions on their use, enforced by Helix, RealNetworks'
version of digital rights management. Thus, Banshee is reporting the
entire contents of your music collection to a DRM enforcement agency.
  
> Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2009 21:27:05 +0100
> From: dan <danattwood at googlemail.com>
> Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] Banshee (& music players generally)
> To: British Ubuntu Talk <ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com>
> Message-ID: <49F61519.1090105 at googlemail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> 
> Rowan Berkeley wrote:
> "I have now tried Rhythmbox, Amarok, and Banshee, and Banshee does
> seem to be the easiest to use --- you can compile a music library
> rather than being pushed straight into playlists (as with Amarok), and
> you can easily select to play albums, from the albums pane. But I
> would like to know how to prevent it from seeking to find cover art
> online -- this doesn't seem to have a disabling option in Preferences.
> I would also like to know how to change the albums panel from icons to
> plain listing. The intention of the designers seems to have been to
> acquire cover art for every album you have, and to display it as
> mini-icons next to the albums in the albums pane, but I don't want
> this feature at all.">   
> I can't for the life of think why you wouldn't want the album art but 
> have you tried exaile? It's very similar to banshee but if you do want
> the album art it's a process you need to kick off manually. Dan