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Review of Amazon's DRM-Less Music Download Store
fdmendez writes to tell us that he had a chance to check out Amazon's DRM-less music download store that was recently released as a beta trial. "Amazon one-ups the iTunes store in every way except for popularity. Never once did I find an album to be more expensive on the Amazon store in comparison to the iTunes store. The download experience was pleasant, and the lack of DRM truly makes it YOUR music. I don't know of any other download service that could top the Amazon MP3 store."
I tried the store out yesterday (bought 1 track) and was very impressed. No special software needed (making it Linux friendly). This might just get me back into buying music again instead of listening to all my old stuff.
God is imaginary
A lot of the 95% complete torrents are seeded by the MAFIAA or their minions like MediaDefender.
Give them a fake address. A friend of mine in Brazil just told me that they're not checking.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Just tried it. XP & VISTA or MAC OSX ONLY for Albums!!!
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You have selected to purchase:
GREATEST HITS by Elton John
(Amazon MP3 Purchases are limited to U.S. customers.)
You must install the Amazon MP3 Downloader to purchase albums. (learn more)
* It automatically adds your music downloads to iTunes or Windows Media Player
* It takes just a few clicks and less than 30 seconds to install
DOWNLOAD NOW -- WINDOWS XP & VISTA
I agree to the terms of use | Download Mac OS X version
They're not 256kbps CBR mp3s. They look like -V0 or -V1 files, based on the bitrate, but are definitely joint-stereo VBR files encoded using LAME 3.97. Run it through strings to see for yourself. There are a lot more devices that support MP3 than AAC (don't just think about pocket jukeboxes here -- think of stuff that plays MP3 CDs and DVDs). 89 cents for a high-bitrate LAME VBR MP3 is without doubt a better choice than an AAC at a slightly lower bitrate for $1.39.
(the two files I've inspected myself, by the way, averaged 279 kbps and 280kbps.)
Some of their MP3s are in fact watermarked, but by the label, not amazon (at least not yet).
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
That's funny! At one time I thought the same thing. Anecdote: I was going through the tedious task of ripping my CDs, and after going through my collection of Nine Inch Nails and Autechre discs, I got the bright idea that instead of ripping my Aphex Twin collection, I'd just download a torrent. Same end result, right? I figured Aphex Twin fans would be fairly careful about audio fidelity, so I grabbed a torrent of some giganto Aphex Twin collection.
The end result was all over the map. Sure, there were a number of albums that were alright, some of them were terrible, with skips and low bitrates and mistitled songs, not to mention whole albums of "rare and unreleased" mislabeled garbage that wasn't even by Aphex Twin. I would have better spent my time continuing to rip them myself.
Alternatively, if I didn't already own the CDs, I would have happily bought large chunks of the Aphex Twin catalog from Bleep.com, which has been doing the DRM-free $1 MP3 download thing for over three years now.
I am Leviathant and I approve this message.
Couldn't care less!
Just for some balance,
I mean, it seems to me like they're on the right track, but someone hasn't put too much thought into the fact that classical music tends to have a lot of very short and very long tracks. Evidence of this -- compare the prices for the complete set of Prokofiev symphonies in those three recordings:
Who's going to pay more than three times as much for a Naxos set as for the Berliner Philharmoniker???