Embedded purchasing of Magnatune music, and amarok embeds magnatune catalog

A few days ago, Nikolaj Hald Nielsen emailed me to let me know that he'd managed to embedded the magnatune catalog into the Linux media player amaroK. A picture of his work is above.

He also asked if there was a way for amaroK to purchase and download the music entirely within amaroK, much like how iTunes music store works.

To enable applications to order music from Magnatune, I've made a REST/XML api that any application can call to order a downloadable album via credit card.

Any application or person is welcome to enable their application or web site to purchase music directly from Magnatune. Instructions are available at: http://magnatune.com/info/api#purchase

The current instructions for doing this are copied below (but consult the above URL, in case the spec changes slightly)

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Embedded Music Purchasing

This url procedure allows your software to purchase music directly from magnatune, and receive all the download information back as an XML document. This is useful if you are embedding the Magnatune catalog inside your application, and would like to let people purchase music directly from within your application. If you so wish, your application can also download the purchased music on the person's behalf.

Point your web browser toward:
http://magnatune.com/buy/buy_dl_cc_xml

or if you can support https: in your application:
https://magnatune.com/buy/buy_dl_cc_xml

an instruction document in XML will appear, displaying this help:

The following fields are required:

sku= field, which is the album's sku code

amount= field, which is how much is being paid for this album in US Dollars

cc= field, which is a Credit card number (VISA/MASTERCARD only)

yy= field, which is a two digit year of the credit card expiration date (zero padded)

mm= field, which is a two digit month of the credit card expiration date (zero padded)

name= field, which is the name of the buyer (if you want it to be blank, send "name=")

email= field, which is the email address of the buyer, so they can retrieve their purchases later if they lose the download info (if you want it to be blank, send "email=")

id= field, which is your partner id. Contact john to obtain one.

Sample URL

Comments

[Ryan Sawhill]

Awesome. So awesome. John, you and your business rock.

[Ian Monroe]

Just to be clear, this isn't in Amarok and its kind of unclear whether and when it will put in. The screenshots certainly look awesome though. And I like the sound of the "partner id". :)

Isn't providing a unsecured method at all a bad idea?

[John Buckman]

Yes, that's right, it isn't embedded in the amarok that ships, but is an additional thing one can install and add.

-john

[John Buckman]

Some followon questions I've received:

how does the username/password to access the download location work? Is it simply http authentication, or is it more complicated?

It is http-auth (ie, simple web authentication).

I can't find any information on how it responds. Specifically, what xml tags, etc. does the page return when you've successfully purchased an album? What about if the credit card gets declined, or the information is wrong?

I do need to document that, but I think you'll find it extremely self-evident. Errors cause an tag and error description to come back, otherwise on success you get fairly obvious fields cleanly separated by <fieldname>XML descriptors</fieldname>.

Is there a URL I could eventually test it with (i.e. dummy album sku or something)?

In my reply email to you, if you ask for a partner ID, I'll give you a test credit card number you can use to test purchasing anything you like.