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Review of Amazon's DRM-Less Music Download Store

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the gosh-you-mean-if-i-buy-it-i-can-keep-it dept.

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."

5 of 437 comments (clear)

  1. I tried it out yesterday by SiChemist · · Score: 5, Informative

    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
    1. Re:I tried it out yesterday by QuantumRiff · · Score: 5, Informative

      Per their FAQ:
      If you use Linux, you can currently buy individual songs. A Linux version of the Amazon MP3 Downloader is under development, and when released will allow entire album purchases.

      That is really nice to see!

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      What are we going to do tonight Brain?
  2. Re:Obligitory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    A lot of the 95% complete torrents are seeded by the MAFIAA or their minions like MediaDefender.

  3. Re:MP3 piracy irrelevant by larry+bagina · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  4. You can't be serious. by Leviathant · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

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