iTunes Store, It Was Fun While It Lasted
I just purchased my first album from the Amazon MP3 store, and that was the beginning of the end for me and iTunes Music Store. At Amazon, you can purchase regular old MP3’s without any DRM for the same price or cheaper than iTunes. Who wouldn’t want that?
I’m not about stealing music, but the fact that I can now play my MP3 on any system just flat out beats the iTunes DRM experience of iPods only. Open systems, in this case MP3, win every time.
So iTunes, are you listening? Get with the non-DRM game or fall by the wayside. Your experience is good and your selection excellent, but if Amazon has the music I’m looking for in stock, you can bet I’m going to shop there.
January 8th, 2008 at 4:33 am
My first reaction was! “Cool, now I can get music without DRM”
But alas not yet, as the Amazon MP3 Store says this on the front page:
“Please note that Amazon MP3 is currently only available to US customers.”
Us UK customers are going to have to wait, YET AGAIN!
I do like Amazon though, very nice company.
January 8th, 2008 at 4:36 am
Doh! That sucks. And yes, it’s very cool that non-DRM music is finally making its way into the mainstream.
January 8th, 2008 at 5:21 am
I too have started looking at Amazon.com first, and only shopping at iTMS when Amazon doesn’t have the song or album that I’m looking for. Many tracks are 89 cents, and unlike iTMS you don’t pay sales tax, and so it’s really a much better deal.
January 8th, 2008 at 6:03 am
iTunes does offer DRM-free music. They changed that under the pressure of the users. It’s called iTunes Plus I think and at first the DRM-free songs were more expensive than the DRM ones but apparently they got cheaper because of Amazon’s offer. As far as I can see it’s AAC files in 256kb/s.
January 8th, 2008 at 6:15 am
That’s true that iTunes has *some* DRM-free music. But it’s a small percentage of their entire catalog.
The other reason I like MP3’s is that I feel like I’m buying a generic portable format that will outlive a specific ecosystem (iPod/iTunes). I’m afraid to buy iTunes music because one day we’re going to stop using iPods and then what? At least with MP3, theoretically the format will last longer than one single monopolized ecosystem.
January 9th, 2008 at 1:40 am
To Daniel: to make it worse, what happens to those who neither in the US nor in the UK? Nor in a country that has a local Amazon branch? I usually buy books either on Amazon UK, Germany, or France; I hope they will not introduce such restrictions on a country-by-country basis…
(I found out about this MP3 store around Xmas myself, and was quite shocked by the US only restriction…)
January 10th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
why would you want to buy mp3s anyways when you can buy the CD and have artwork and a physical backup copy and rip into any format under the sun? the mind boggles
January 10th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Well, MP3s are way more convenient. I hate physical CD’s. I’m just going to rip them anyway and throw out the case. Plus, there’s something to be said for instant gratification.