It seems like yesterday. There you were, two years ago, flashing your bits at me. How could I resist? Legal music downloads? And only 99 cents? My god, you were sexy. What better place to put my new legit music than on a tastefully created Ipod. That is, of course, when I wasn’t listening to this new legit music on my PC with the large speakers. I still remember the first purchase. Okay, I don’t but it sounded good.
Yeah, there have been multiple music offerings over the last couple years. There was “Real Audio”, Walmart downloads, Napster (legit), and a multitude of others out there. In my mind, they all sucked. It wasn’t until this year that I finally found a new love. That new love is Amazon MP3’s. No longer do I have to deal with limited transfers from my ipod, to my pc, to my laptop, to my car. I actually have some new music now that I can put on the device of my choosing without the threat of a visit from the RIAA. No way, I’m not sharing them. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this new download has a unique identifier on it that could get me in trouble if it found it’s way online. I never have shared any music and don’t intend to. I’ve always just wanted the freedom to use the music where I want to.
Did I mention that a lot of the tracks are only .89 too? Oh, yeah, and when you download it, it just saves to whatever folder you want as an MP3, because that’s what it is. I’d also point out that the quality of the track is very good too. Sure, they have a limited selection, but I would bet they’ll have a comparable selection to Itunes in the not too distant future.
Anyway, I’m happy. Have you tried Amazon music? http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=sv_m_7/105-7538581-5324425?ie=UTF8&node=163856011 (notice I’m not referring you because I don’t have an affiliate account)
I’m through with the iTunes store. Amazon’s offering is just as good, and without DRM.
The final straw? My dad had been buying music at the iTunes store for a couple years. He had probably $1K worth, and then he died. My siblings and I wanted to hear what he’d been listening to, but because we didn’t have his password, we couldn’t. His music went with him.
That’s just an anecdote, but the real problem is that you don’t *own* anything you buy from the iTunes store. You can listen to it only when Apple gives you permission. A few weeks back a server change at Apple locked out lots of users from their accounts. The result? We couldn’t listen to our music, because we couldn’t get authorized.
Lame. So now Amazon exclusively gets my digital music dollar.
I use Qbox.com to listen to music at work. While it’s not a download service and you can’t buy the music, it’s a great way to listen to music and with their emotional link feature you can discover new music that’s right in tune with your preferences.