Rancho Santa Margarita, CA ­ 18 December 2004 -- Mindawn, a revolutionary 
new online music service, has opened its doors for business. Mindawn is a 
new entry on the online music distribution market that differs from the 
competition in three major ways: cross-platform compatibility, CD-quality 
song files, and virtually no digital rights restrictions (DRM).

Most online music services tie the user to one or at best two computer 
platforms: iTunes is only for Mac OS X and Windows; Napster is 
Windows-only. Mindawn, on the other hand, works with all three major 
platforms -- Windows, Mac OS X and Linux -- and is fully compatible with 
all three. With Mindawn's cross-platform client software, you can even hear 
a full preview of the entire song, unlike competing services, which only 
offer brief excerpts.

Competitors also normally only offer music files that are reduced in 
quality through what's called " lossy compression". The more compressed a 
file is, the greater the loss in sound quality. By contrast, Mindawn offers 
its files in both Ogg Vorbis and FLAC formats. Ogg Vorbis, unlike MP3, is a 
totally free and open sound format, and offers superior sound quality 
compared to MP3 and other compression techniques. Meanwhile, FLAC is full 
CD quality and while 50% smaller, can easily be converted to AIFF or WAV 
files for use in standard CD players or converted to virtually any other 
lossy format for use on any portable media player.

Mindawn is the only online music service to offer FLAC and Ogg Vorbis as 
its standard music file formats, and is the only service to offer music in 
both "lossy" and "lossless" forms.

Competing online music services such as Napster or Apple's iTunes only 
offer their music in a highly restricted form, commonly known as "digital 
rights management". Essentially this is a means of stopping the user from 
listening to their purchased music in any way they see fit. By contrast, 
for private users, Mindawn does not restrict the use of music files 
purchased from its service. Users may copy them to any number of devices 
and convert them to other formats as they wish.

Mindawn also offers a simple and attractive royalty system for artists, and 
is ideal for young artists looking for a simple and easy way to sell their 
music online. All you artists have to do is sign up, upload your music, and 
start selling, there is no approval process involved, you can be live in 
the time it takes to rip and upload your material. Royalties are paid 
monthly via our partnership with PayPal.

A number of labels have already signed with Mindawn to offer their artists' 
music through its service. These include DVS Records, UBP International, 
OtterSong Records, ProgRock Records, Lion Music, Record Heaven, Big Balloon 
Music, Fading Ways Music and more. More labels are in the pipeline, and 
Mindawn is actively attracting other labels to join its service with its 
simple licensing and royalty scheme.


About Mindawn

Mindawn (www.mindawn.com) is a division of theKompany.com 
(www.thekompany.com), a California-based software company with developer 
teams in North America and Europe, and a sister company of ProgRock.com 
(www.progrock.com), the first name in progressive rock on the 
Internet.  theKompany.com's products are marketed both online and through 
B&M channels such as Microcenter and Fry’s Electronics.

Press contact:
Shawn Gordon
Mindawn
PO Box 80265
Rancho Santa Margarita, CA 92688 USA
Tel: (949) 713-3276
Fax: (949) 713-4846
E-mail: [log in to unmask] 

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