We all have our little initiatives for this new year. Brandon at Another Here wants to better himself in a new way every month of the year. Me, I just want less stuff to carry around.
My perfect life would be to be so free of Stuff that I could toss my laptop and my Orange Teddy into a bag, my clothes into a suitcase, and go live anywhere. I’m a long way from that. But to be without all but the most essential possessions is a dream.
So this year is my year to go a little more Digital — not to pay for dead tree stuff unless I just can’t help it.
My Sony Reader is filled with books and is going a very long way toward reducing the hundreds of books I even now have to worry about all the time. My iAUDIO 30Gb holds my *entire music collection* (and is backed up on my Linux machine) so I never have to open up the giant binders that contain the actual CDs (the cases long ago thrown away during another move).
I’ve been going legal, here, pretty much. I *may* have stumbled on a large archive of thousands of SF&F books that are long out of print (show me where I can buy Clifford D. Simak’s “Time is the Simplest Thing” in a form I can read on my Reader, and I will. That one book took YEARS to find in used bookstores, and I gave it away when I moved). But I have bought lots, too.
Books bought from Sony Connect are DRM’d, but I *can* back them up, so they will always be available even if Sony Connect goes out of business. I can also read them on the PC with their software. If I lose the book, I can download books I have already purchased again from Connect for free.
I have so much music already that I haven’t really needed to get much newer stuff, and those occasional albums I buy have been real CDs. Exactly what I’ve been trying to get away from. I don’t have an iPod, so I don’t have the convenience of iTunes (yes, I know they sell unprotected MP3s now. I just don’t want to get into the whole iTunes thing).
An article about converting their website to Ruby on Rails led me to CDBaby a few months ago, but I hadn’t bought anything from them until last weekend. They deal exclusively in independent music, and all their music is DRM free. A large portion of the price for the music goes directly to the artist, so if you want to support independent music and those who make it, this is a fantastic choice. Large labels give hardly any of the profits to the artist.
I’m a big fan of Portishead, so the first thing I try when I look at a new online music store is to find artists similar to them. Pandora hasn’t done that good a job (though I think they did lead me to Sneaker Pimps), but CDBaby gave me several choices, especially a Toronto-area band, Undadogg. I bought their album and followup EP on high quality MP3.
It downloaded easily, and their customer support department was very responsive by email, even on a Saturday, when I had a question. They remember what you download and can always download it again for free.
Sometimes, though, I want major label stuff. This last weekend I tried out Amazon’s MP3 download service. I wanted to get Radiohead’s “Pablo Honey” because it was bugging me playing “Creep” all the time on Rock Band and not having the album it came from. And just because I have no thoughts of my own and jump on every bandwagon I can, I got the Decemberist’s “Crane Wife”.
I do all my browsing on my Linux box and of course my music is stored there, but to buy albums (as opposed to individual tracks, apparently), you need to use their Music Download application. Which would even register your tracks with Windows Media Player and iTunes!
Well, since I use neither application, and really am a little ambivalent about being registered for stuff with applications which report back to the Home Planet about what you play, I decided to just try and see if I could just download the tracks the way I download everything else, with Bittorrent Firefox.
I got a .AMZ file. Whee. So like, where’s the music?
I ended up having to install their little application on my Vista-using laptop. I couldn’t download the .AMZ file again — apparently, though they remember what you bought so they can make recommendations for you, if you try to download it a second time, they ask if you really want to PURCHASE IT AGAIN.
Um. No, I bought it already. YOU KNOW I bought it already. Why can’t I download it again for free?
I copied the .AMZ file from my Linux box to my laptop, downloaded the tracks, and copied them back to Linux.
I was kinda annoyed, though, that I cannot download those tracks again without paying for them again.
So:
Sony Connect: moderate selection, competitive prices, lets you re-download stuff you own: B
CD Baby: independent music only, a little expensive, lets you re-download stuff you own, good customer support: B+
Amazon MP3s: good selection, competitive prices, must repay for stuff you own, must install a “helper” program to download albums which does not work on Linux even under WINE: C
8 thoughts on “Digital Media: Amazon, Sony and CDBaby”
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I was able to redownload some music I bought from Amazon but I had to have a email from the customer support to show me where to get it. It was under order details in your account history somewhere. I was under the impression you can get any of them again but I only got the ones I missed during a power cut. They don’t make this easy to find or intuitive, but it did work for me. Otherwise I agree on CDBaby, it is brilliant and I use Amazon for big name stuff as much as I can.
I also appreciated Emusic for not having DRM but I recently dropped it as the whole subscription vs buying what I want got annoying. I was always able to get good tracks every month, but the subs model would leave me with partial albums and the only way to complete was to buy in blocks, rather than just the tracks I was after. Still kudos to them for the DRM free part and the low price.
I looked at eMusic, but could find hardly anything I wanted, so I skipped out on it. The last thing I want is a subscription to anything. Periodic payments are bad.
I poked around in my history and stuff for awhile just because I figured it would be faster to just get it again than to figure out how to unprotect the public folders on Vista enough so that I could connect to them and send stuff from my Linux box. Total headache. But that’s what I ended up having to do.
I’ll look around more tonight and see if I can find the spot where I can download them again, and will note it in my post if I can find it.
While you’re listening to the Decemberist’s get “The Mariner’s Revenge” also. One of the best “story-songs” in years.
What do you think is worse: a subscription website or a site that uses DRM ? I was just wondering because I heard the RIAA was getting bold by its recent court victories and was putting preassure on websites that had recently dropped DRM to pick it back up again. I know they are deffinitely trying to restrict fair use in which case a music seller that sells unprotected mp3 files could be liable under the DMCA for encouraging copyright infringement.
http://gamepolitics.com/2007/12/31/riaas-latest-craziness-illegal-to-copy-cds-to-hard-drive/
I won’t use either DRM or subscriptions for audio recordings, since I play my music on LINUX and on a non-standard MP3 player (iAUDIO X5) and neither of them support DRM. So if they make it impossible for me to pay for music and listen to it legally, I guess I’ll have to find alternatives.
DRM causes piracy to flourish.
RIAA is doing a disservice to its member companies. It should be encouraging their transition into the Digital Age. CDs are just such cash cows for them, but not necessarily for the artists they claim to want to protect. Truth is, they can do whatever they want. Sue anyone, do anything, buy as many politicians as they like. They are dying and they know it. People *are* willing to pay for their content if they can get it on their terms.
Bildo, I do like the Decemberists, but I have to listen to Crane Wife some more. It’s going to take awhile to fully understand what they’re doing there. I don’t mind — much better than throwaway music. It took me awhile to understand Radiohead (re: OK Computer) as well. Fates Warning was another difficult band for me.
@Brett — I did some looking around in Amazon’s web site, went to my account, chose the downloads tab, both the albums I bought were there, and hey, both had Download buttons!
I pressed Download, and was taken to a track list, where each track had the words “Already downloaded” by it. Each track had a link, so I followed that link and was offered a chance to buy that track individually.
I give up on this — even if there is a way to download your content again, it’s hidden so well that it might as well not be offered at all (and I simply cannot find it). It certainly seems as if they do NOT want you to redownload purchased content and are doing their very best to assure you that is not an option.
Decemberists are one of my favorite bands of all time. I really really love The Crane Wife, but you should definitely get your hands on Picaresque as well. Another great album.
Check out my Top 25 albums of the year for more =)
http://www.cuppycake.org/?p=299
I recently bought some music from CDBaby: 2 albums from Unfinished Thought. When I added them to my cart I was told that since both of them were from their “bargain bin”, if I picked a 3rd I’d get all 3 of them for $5 each, compared to the $10-ish I’ll have to pay for individually. Great deal, although that made me search the entire site for an entire night before finding another album that I liked.
I love CDBaby, it’s one of the best distribution sites out there (fair deal with the artists too!). I’d love to buy music from Amazon but they only sell within the US only. I had a subscription to eMusic for 2 months previously and bought a bunch of mostly New Age music off them, and then canceled it.