Amazon's DRM FREE music dowload service

Post by **GORDON** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 12:49 pm

http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=163856011

edit: I did test seaches on 3 artists, VAST, Leaves' Eyes, and... I already forgot.

Large catalogs, each song $.89. Cheaper than apple and no DRM.

Edited By GORDON on 1190998375

Post by **GORDON** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 12:54 pm

Oh, Blind Guardian.

Some tunes were $.99.

WSGrundy · Post by **WSGrundy** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 4:10 pm

People have been saying that they won't have the catalog other sites have because of no DRM but so far every song I have looked for they have had.

Post by **thibodeaux** » Sat Sep 29, 2007 6:05 pm

Both Amazon and Wal Mart had the Jethro Tull song I wanted. iTunes doesn't.

Post by **TheCatt** » Tue Dec 25, 2007 10:09 pm

Finally tried out the service, as the wife wanted some Christmas songs we did not have.

The downloading and purchasing is VERY EASY. Almost too easy. Just click "Buy mp3" then click to confirm (you can even make it a one-click purchase, but that seems dangerous). I purchased 5 songs, 89 cents each. On the first one, I tried using the Amazon downloading program in FireFox, but something happened, and the song didn't download. The bad news is, you only get one download attempt. It misfires, you have to contact customer service. I downloaded the other four directly, without using the downloader. They worked fine.

So for the one song, I contacted customer service, and 24 hours later I could download the song again.

There are no backups, and no re-download privileges whatsoever. If you lose the song, you lose it forever. But the songs are indeed DRM-less, and encoded at 256kbs, so they sound pretty good.

Overall, I'm a fan. I'd give it 4/5 stars. Having a way to redownload within X # of hours would be great to prevent issues like I had.

Post by **Vince** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 2:28 pm

thibodeaux wrote:Both Amazon and Wal Mart had the Jethro Tull song I wanted. iTunes doesn't.

Walmart's download service is going away. HP provided the service for Walmart and they're shutting it down.

Post by **TheCatt** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 3:39 pm

Vince wrote:
thibodeaux wrote:Both Amazon and Wal Mart had the Jethro Tull song I wanted. iTunes doesn't.
Walmart's download service is going away. HP provided the service for Walmart and they're shutting it down.

You are thinking of movies.

Post by **Vince** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 12:09 am

You're right. I was mis-remembering.

Post by **Leisher** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 1:36 pm

Another company drops DRM for Amazon.

Why does anyone use iTunes?

Post by **GORDON** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 2:02 pm

Because of their iPods, no doubt. Aren't they forced to use iTunes?

Post by **TheCatt** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 3:56 pm

iTunes is much easier to use than Amazon's service.

Post by **Vince** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 6:20 pm

GORDON wrote:Because of their iPods, no doubt. Aren't they forced to use iTunes?

I think they have to use the iTunes program to synch, but they don't have to download from them.

Post by **GORDON** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 9:02 pm

At launch a lot of people had a problem with iTunes breaking their shit. The threads are prolly here somewhere. I assume the bugs were worked out?

And it still has DRM.

Post by **Vince** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 10:05 pm

If iTunes isn't any more secure than Quicktime, then... sheesh

I hear there are hack programs out there for Windows and Linux for loading the iPods. Every so often the Apple firmware updates kill them, but they come back after a few coding "adjustments".

WSGrundy · Post by **WSGrundy** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 8:10 pm

I just got an email from Walmart telling me that they will soon be DRM free and only selling songs as mp3 files. No more WMA.

Everything will be finished changing on Oct. 9th.