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October 16, 2007

The day I never thought would come…

It might take some digging, but a faithful reader (do I even have any of those?) would know that I don’t like iPods. I’ve written about it before here and I have rambled about how I still like CD’s here.

No, that hasn’t changed. I still hate iPods. The Zune never changed the world and it all came back to the same reason: DRM.

Today I digitally purchased music without DRM. This is the day I never thought would come. Mark it on your calendars.

In case you didn’t know Amazon has been selling MP3’s without any DRM or other wonky “gotcha” schemes. They have a fairly large catalog, but its nowhere near as extensive as iTunes. Who fucking cares about iTunes? The MP3’s are high quality, 256kbps, with album art included. The only snag I had was I tried to download them at work on a computer running OSX 10.3 and the downloader tool only supports 10.4+ so I wound up purchasing tracks one at a time. The beauty? I put them on my new Iriver Clix2, my Mac at work, my HTPC and my laptop. No burning to CD, ripping, copying pasting, syncing or any other horse shit.

I’m actually so blown away that I can’t even believe its legal. I still feel like I’ve stolen something. Try it now. If you don’t, you’re letting yourself and the world down.

This is how it should have been done YEARS AGO. BRAVO Amazon. BRA-VO.

Filed by Travis on October 16th, 2007

Honestly I’m not too thrilled for the store itself. I found it alright. The selection was sorta poor, the layout was hard to follow, and the album are a whooping 120+MB. So, i think it’s okay.

But I am excited for the precedent it sets. Eventually more and more people are going to flock to this. The selection will get bigger, the options better, and DRM will be dead and I won’t haveany more useless fucking M4P files.

Comment by ChrisHP — October 16, 2007 @ 6:37 pm

Personally, I have no problem with large album sizes. I’d rather it sounds good. Layout isn’t as refined as iTunes, but its not hopeless. Its very similar to the rest of the Amazon site. Lets not forget, their site is still in its infancy. iTunes music store has been around for at least 6 years now.

The difference between the two stores is the experience. That is what the iTunes/iPod marrige was all about. It was a closed loop system that all the studios could get behind because they knew their music wasn’t really going anywhere. All those iPod accessories? They keep their protected content on the player. If you could connect the player to anything, why would you want your music to ever come off of it?

Sure, having that sort of integrated system makes life easy, but it also limits choice. Thats really what Apple is all about. Its all super easy because its designed to work together, which is fine until you want to use that device with something else.
(I might be on the fringe a little here)

I do agree with you HP. Thank god for the precedent it sets. Maybe they will get a clue.
(Oh wait, they did… Apple reduced the cost of its DRM free tracks to $0.99 just like Amazon. You used to have to pay a PREMIUM for the convenience.)

Comment by Travis — October 17, 2007 @ 6:39 am

I own an iPod, which was bought as a gift, I never paid for it. In the almost 2 years I have had it, I have had to restore it 3 times, losing all of my songs in the process. It doesn’t turn off, and it’s battery dies really fast. In the end, I wouldn’t recommend getting one. And sometimes, Itunes doesn’t provide the album art, which sucks, because I am one of those rare people who likes looking at that stuff. I am definitely going to look at Amazon. Maybe they have the Beatles, or some Radiohead–which Itunes doesn’t have.

Comment by Colleen — October 17, 2007 @ 6:48 pm

Colleen- Radiohead has their own pricing scheme for their latest album: Whatever you want to pay them. Seriously. http://www.inrainbows.com

Comment by Travis — October 17, 2007 @ 9:55 pm

Travis- I am quite aware of that. Maybe I should listen to it. I am really after their song Creep. And I don’t want some tribute band singing it. Other bands I have heard are getting into that pay whatever you want, to keep fans.

Comment by Colleen — October 18, 2007 @ 7:38 am

So… did you know iTunes offers a no DRM service now? How silly.

Comment by ChrisHP — October 22, 2007 @ 4:07 pm

I did know that. They have actually offered it for a while now, but you used to have to pay a premium for the privilege of having no restrictions. Oh, and you still weren’t getting an MP3. Only recently have they reduced the cost, presumably in an effort to be more cost competitive with the likes of Amazon. Also, its not an option for the entire catalog, only on select albums.

Comment by Travis — October 22, 2007 @ 5:38 pm

Oh. Balls.

Comment by ChrisHP — October 24, 2007 @ 8:01 pm

Oh yeah. You’d be proud to know that I hunted through iTunes for an album. I almost bought it until I recalled this post and Amazon! Cheaper and mp3s!

Comment by ChrisHP — October 24, 2007 @ 8:01 pm

I don’t know personally of other bands that have done the same thing as Radiohead, but I know of a couple sites that have a similar sort of setup. http://www.magnatune.com is where I found out about “Falling You,” and they let you pay anywhere from $5 to $15 for a full album download - which is nice for stuff that’s only been recommended to you instead of having firsthand experience. Also, there are a variety of sites that have all sorts of music the band’s trying to promote, such as http://www.lunarmusic.net. I listen to Lunar and Morpheus a decent amount, and they both offer their music free of charge.

One band that’s been fighting a lot of the conventional methods of music distribution has been Nine Inch Nails. They’ve been quoted several times during their shows as telling the fans to steal their music because the CDs cost too much, and recently they’ve left their record label to distribute music on their own. (You can Google and YouTube piles of articles and videos supporting this.) It’s been reported they may take the Radiohead approach, but who knows.

Comment by Larry — October 31, 2007 @ 4:12 pm

I’ve since purchased 2 albums on Amazon. I must say I am very happy with the results. Fast, easy, the downloader is unobtrusive, and I just copied those mp3’s to all of my various devices and computers. Amazing.

Comment by Travis — October 31, 2007 @ 4:35 pm

I just enjoy knowing that I could make a CD out of my music if I so chose.

Another artist who took the download route was Tech N9ne. He went through this whole F.T.I. (Fuck the industry) movement some time back. He offered his whole CD, Absolute Power, up for download. For the actual CD release, which you could buy for 15 bucks, you’d get 6 extra songs and a DVD. It was pretty cool.

Comment by ChrisHP — November 4, 2007 @ 2:12 pm

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