What online music service should I use? (1 Viewer)

[Eric_L]

I am FINALLY back into my Hurricane Charley damaged home - meaning I now have broadband again (Hooray!)

My wife and I are wanting to start downloading tunes but much has changed in the last 18 months. I can't keep up with all of the rules and terms, and the sites are evasive about what happens to the tunes you download.

Could you all please help us decide where we want to do business?

We want to be able to buy a song and download it to our PC. We will then, most often, stream it to our stereo, though we will also download it to a personal music player (NOT an IPOD brand) On rare occasions we may burn it to CD. I do want to use the music for background music with home movies and photo shows which I will create on my PC. I also want assurance that when I upgrade to a new PC or hard drive that my copy protection will not 'eat' my purchased music.

My worry is two-fold; One - That I cannot do all of these things with the music I purchase at all or without intensive massaging of the product; and Two - that the music I've already downloaded years ago will get changed to a proprietary format which limits the uses of it which I currently enjoy.

So, what can y'all tell me? Which service is best for my needs/uses?

 

[Linda Thompson]

A good place to start:

http://www.cnet.com/4520-7899_1-6304020-4.html?tag=nav

 

[BrianW]

I like MP3 Tunes (.com).

Things I like about this service:

1. NO copy protection. None. Nada. They even pledge that when you buy music from them, you can do anything you want with it within fair-use limits, including copying it to mp3 players, converting it to a different format, burning it to CD, making backups, etc.

2. Excellent music. It's not your typical pop music, though, but I never liked pop music anyway. YMMV.

3. Try Before You Buy feature that allows you to listen to a snippet of a track before you buy it.

4. Tracks can be bought individually, or entire albums can be bought for a discount.

5. Your music purchases are kept track of in a personal folder, always available for FREE download. So if disaster strikes (like, say, a hurricane), and your hard drive with all your music is demolished, you can just go to your personal folder and REdownload your previously purchased music to rebuild your music library -- FOR FREE!



MP3Tunes.com was started by Michael Robertson. Whatever you think of him, he's definitely a champion of computer user's rights and has developed this site to reflect that. In contrast to DRM's increasing trampling of our right to truly own our computers (Sony, anyone?), MP3Tunes is a bastion of freedom. I'm very happy to take my business to MP3Tunes.com where I'm treated like a valued customer instead of like a criminal.

 

[Scott L]

also check out www.allofmp3.com

Dirt cheap prices and from what I hear you can download a lossless copy of the song (can anyone confirm this?).

 

[Eric_L]

MP3 tunes sounds interesting - mostly because I don't like the idea that songs I download from other sites have restrictions on them - even though I'm really nor sure what the restrictions are or if I'd even notice them...

I'll have to check it out. Thanks.

What about the major sites - how imposing are the restictions based on my intended use? Anyone know?