Where do you buy your digital music?

[skyrefuge]

But I've noticed that some songs are not included in the download. They say cd format only and it seems to be the longer songs. Anyone else notice that?

ha, I just noticed this, and it seems like it might be connected to my old-person-terminology rant I just made. You're probably confusing "CD only" with "Album only".

On most music download services, long tracks are not made available as single-track downloads (those priced at ~$0.99 or whatever). They're only available if you purchase ALL the tracks of an album together (for $9.99 or whatever). The idea is to prevent you from getting too much music for too low of a price (they don't want you to be able to buy Green Carnation's 60-minute track for a mere $0.99). Since most people on a forum like this are likely to be "whole album" buyers rather than "get that hot single I heard on the radio", this is usually not an issue, especially since it's often cheaper to buy the album-as-a-whole anyway vs. its individual tracks.

 

[broegaard]

So... I think I'm ready to abandon the physical format and just go completely digital. I'm curious where most people buy their music from and why? Apple? Google? Amazon? All of the above? Any reasons for your preferences? Thanks.

I don't believe in digital purchases. Never bought a single digital song and as long as the "real" stuff is available I won't pay a dime for a music file

 

[TheLongshot]

Amazon, mostly because they offer good deals. Used to be better deals when you could get $25 gift cards from Discover for $20, but they still offer credits and big discounts on albums on a regular basis.

Course, it is never going to be a big deal for me until someone actually offers a lossless format. Until then, it doesn't matter to me what the bitrate is, since I'm not going to transcode a lossy format, no matter how good it is.

 

[Mardoch]

You buy the album, you own the product.

Too bad the industry at large doesn't agree with that view.

 

[Creeps]

I'm totally digital format now, mostly from Amazon. I've bought 2-3 albums from ITunes just to get an exclusive track only available there.

I'll buy physical CDs if they come with a cool pre-order package or something. Most recently Sister Sin's new album for $20ish you get the CD and a shirt, I added a 2nd shirt and got a free poster I didn't know about as well.

Bought the anniversary edition of Screaming For Vengeance because it came with the US Fest DVD performance. Worth.Every.Cent.

I'll also buy physical over digital if, for whatever reason, the physical is cheaper or the same price as the digital.

 

[Barrister]

Too bad the industry at large doesn't agree with that view.

You're right. I'm not here to defend the backward nature of US copyright law, but the illegal download in no way goes away when you legally purchase the music. In the (unlikely) event you would be sued, the "But I bought the album" defense is meaningless.

I just buy CDs (Okay, fine, I'm old) because downloads are way overpriced.

 

[General Zod]

Too bad the industry at large doesn't agree with that view.

You're right. I'm not here to defend the backward nature of US copyright law, but the illegal download in no way goes away when you legally purchase the music.

Hey kids... there's 30 other threads on this board dedicated to the topics of copyright law, the state of the music industry, the greed of the music industry, and the morality of downloading illegally. Can we keep this thread from becoming 31? Thank you much.

 

[jem777az]

I just buy CDs (Okay, fine, I'm old) because downloads are way overpriced.

Really? I find that digital downloads are on the whole way cheaper than a physical product. It's one of the main reasons I try to do digital only. I can get most any album for $9.99 or less whereas a physical copy generally runs $12 and up. Nightmare records has some killer price points on their releases. $5-$6 an album is hard to beat.

 

[nailz]

This. I would love to hop on board the iTunes train, but I can't deal with the DRM and the restrictions....and I hate Apple!

iTunes hasn't used DRM in years.

 

[nailz]

I don't believe in digital purchases. Never bought a single digital song and as long as the "real" stuff is available I won't pay a dime for a music file

THAT IS SO EXTREMELY HELPFUL TO THE CONVERSATION, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR POSTING YOUR ABSOLUTELY IRRELEVANT VIEWPOINT.

 

[nailz]

You're right. I'm not here to defend the backward nature of US copyright law, but the illegal download in no way goes away when you legally purchase the music. In the (unlikely) event you would be sued, the "But I bought the album" defense is meaningless.

I don't understand exactly what your argument to my point was. No one is going to come busting into your house, and do forensics on your computer to find you have a higher encoded BR file than what was offered as a download after you purchased an album.

Unless, of course, you're trying to say "hurr durr downloading is bad." ... I'm not making that argument and like Zod said, there's 100000 other threads that have been circle jerked to blisters.

 

[Mardoch]

Hey kids... there's 30 other threads on this board dedicated to the topics of copyright law, the state of the music industry, the greed of the music industry, and the morality of downloading illegally. Can we keep this thread from becoming 31? Thank you much.

I was just giving Nailz some <3 for his stance.

I've bought all of two digital albums, one from the artist and the other through Bandcamp. I still like having the real deal.

 

[MYSTIC1]

In order- Amazon, Itunes, CDBaby, 7Digital. Amazon has the best prices hands down. Itunes only discounts occasionally.

 

[RockinRob]

eMusic and Amazon are my preferred services. eMusic seems to consistently have the best prices, and often times, the highest bit rates.

 

[broegaard]

Really? I find that digital downloads are on the whole way cheaper than a physical product. It's one of the main reasons I try to do digital only. I can get most any album for $9.99 or less whereas a physical copy generally runs $12 and up. Nightmare records has some killer price points on their releases. $5-$6 an album is hard to beat.

if your HD crashes can you download for free?

 

[broegaard]

THAT IS SO EXTREMELY HELPFUL TO THE CONVERSATION, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR POSTING YOUR ABSOLUTELY IRRELEVANT VIEWPOINT.

ok little kid

 

[AeonicSlumber]

So... I think I'm ready to abandon the physical format and just go completely digital. I'm curious where most people buy their music from and why? Apple? Google? Amazon? All of the above? Any reasons for your preferences? Thanks.

I rarely buy digital, but when I do it's iTunes. However, I'm pretty close to getting a Spotify premium account and just sticking to that for my digital music consumption. I still get the physical product though. Just got the special edition artbook + CD of the new Converge.

 

[Oblivion Ocean]

So essentially, I'd be using Amazon/Apple only as a tool for paying the band. Interesting.

Seems weird when you say it out loud, but this is kinda what I do. Because I am a bad human being I download pre-releases and try stuff out. If Nuclear Blast is having a good preorder deal with a shirt and the physical cd I will get this and shelve the cd. But on other occasions, I go to Amazon or Itunes and buy the album and just keep listening to the "unofficial" versions if they sound better.

But at least I feel as though I supported the artist. But perhaps it is just rationalization to ease the cognitive dissonance on my part.

 

[AeonicSlumber]

I look at it as buying the rights to own the media. If you buy a copy of Windows and it comes on a DVD, Microsoft isn't going to charge you $200 to replace the DVD if it breaks, they're going to send you a new one.

If you've already got the 320kbps files, and purchase the album from amazon, I don't see any reason to delete the 320kbps files or never use them again, especially if what you're getting is 'inferior'.

You buy the album, you own the product.

Well that's completely wrong. If your copy of Windows breaks, Microsoft will not just send you a new disc. I've never heard of that in my life with any tech related product. You have to buy insurance to protect against that (or sometimes there's a limited warranty).

As a matter of fact, software companies are getting extremely anal about that sort of thing. I'm a mac user and so I have to buy the Office suite separately in order to run Power Point, Word, and usually when I do that the disc comes with 3 installs only.

When you buy a software or music, you are not at ALL buying the rights to that media. You're "licensing" the use of that media from the rights holder.

 

[SkiBumMSP]

if your HD crashes can you download for free?

Perhaps that is why I run a weekly full backup on my server? Just in case that hard drive does crash (and believe me, it has).