Press Clipping
12/07/2022
Article
Winamp update includes support for music NFTs

Music player Winamp has received its second major update of the year, adding a handful of new features and bug fixes.

A major new addition for Winamp version 5.9.1 is support for non-fungible token (NFT) audio tracks in its media library.

Music NFTs work much the same as NFT images, but instead of a link directing the owner to a jpeg, they receive a link to a digital music file.

Integrating NFT support into the decades-old app was apparently not simple.

Clicking “NFT Library” in Winamp opens a webpage on winamp.com with instructions on how to add such songs to a playlist. The library inside the app is currently just an empty view.

“To display the necessary contents, it would require us to update the internal browser engine in Winamp to, [for example], QtWeb/Chromium instead of [Internet Explorer 10]… which isn’t happening for 5.9.1,” the developers said.

Instead, Winamp explained to Ars Technica the latest version lets music fans link their Metamask wallet via the Brave, Chrome, or Firefox browsers to Winamp.

“Winamp supports audio and video files distributed under both the ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standards, and is launching this new feature for Ethereum and Polygon/Matic protocols,” Winamp said.

Proponents argue that artists could make more money by releasing unique or limited-run music tracks as NFTs and getting a share of secondhand sales of the NFT track between fans.

In a post with the update’s release notes, Winamp developer Eddy Richman asked users not to post any NFT rants on the forums.

“If you don’t have any music NFTs, and don’t ever intend getting any or using the feature, then you can deselect it in the installer options, or delete the DLL, or uninstall the plugin via preferences, and that’s the end of it.”

The bug fixes in the latest Winamp version include a reduced memory footprint, increased streamed music bandwidth, an OpenSSL 3.0.5 update, and several codec and Winamp software updates.