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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > iPhone, iPad & iPod > Do you buy music downloads from stores other than iTunes?

Do you buy music downloads from stores other than iTunes?
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musictracker
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Sep 18, 2006, 02:06 PM
 
Hey everyone. Just wondering... does it bother you that there are restrictions on what you can do with the songs you buy from iTunes?

E.g. you can only use them on your iPod and not on any other digital music player you might have... and you can only burn your songs onto CDs a limited number of times, etc.

Do any of you buy songs from other music stores, like, say Yahoo! Music Unlimited or eMusic.com, both of which I believe are free of these kinds of restrictions?
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teknopimp
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Sep 18, 2006, 02:26 PM
 
i haven't purchased from itunes yet.

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musictracker  (op)
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Sep 18, 2006, 02:27 PM
 
Originally Posted by teknopimp
i haven't purchased from itunes yet.
Do you purchase from another store?
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Big Mac
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Sep 18, 2006, 02:35 PM
 
Mac users don't really care about the other services, most of which are only compatible with Windows.

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icruise
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Sep 18, 2006, 02:53 PM
 
I've bought stuff from eMusic.com and while it is free from DRM, the fact that they have relatively few artists that I like combined with the comparative clunkiness of their web-based interface makes me prefer iTunes.

I don't find the iTunes DRM to be restrictive in the least, but of course there aren't any non-iPod music players that I find appealing. If one were to appear, it might be annoying that I couldn't play my purchases on it, but you can always burn to CD and re-import to get rid of the DRM, so even that isn't a huge problem.
     
musictracker  (op)
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Sep 18, 2006, 04:35 PM
 
Originally Posted by Big Mac
Mac users don't really care about the other services, most of which are only compatible with Windows.
Ah, I see. Are there ANY other Mac-compatible music stores?
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icruise
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Sep 18, 2006, 04:52 PM
 
eMusic.com
     
jeffreyfrabutt
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Sep 18, 2006, 05:35 PM
 
Originally Posted by Big Mac
Mac users don't really care about the other services, most of which are only compatible with Windows.
Speak for yourself..I'm a Mac user but I use Rhapsody to download my music.. it's cheaper than iTunes by $.10 per track. I buy a lot of music... so the savings do add up!!!
     
SirCastor
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Sep 18, 2006, 05:59 PM
 
Originally Posted by Big Mac
Mac users don't really care about the other services, most of which are only compatible with Windows.
That about accurately sums it up.
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ghporter
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Sep 18, 2006, 06:58 PM
 
Burn your iTunes purchases to CD immediately. Then rip the resulting CD at the highest bitrate available (320kbps at the moment for MP3) and you are no longer under anyone's DRM thumb. Some purists will point out that doing this introduces artifacts that they can hear. I can't hear anything but the music-and that's one of the reasons I rip at 320kbps. The song files will be bigger, but they should sound good on just about anything.

I have tended to use MusicMatch on my PC for ripping because it's simpler to tag a whole album at a time, and there's fewer hoops to jump through in selecting a specific location to store the resulting file. As such, I've bought a few tracks through them, but I haven't seen any problems with putting these on my iPod. The tracks I've bought may have not had any DRM; I just don't know.

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musictracker  (op)
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Sep 18, 2006, 09:36 PM
 
Originally Posted by jeffreyfrabutt
Speak for yourself..I'm a Mac user but I use Rhapsody to download my music.. it's cheaper than iTunes by $.10 per track. I buy a lot of music... so the savings do add up!!!
I guess it all comes down to price, ease of use, and the size of their song collections right? Other than that there's not much difference between the different music stores.
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memory-minus
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Sep 20, 2006, 06:45 AM
 
Originally Posted by ghporter
Some purists will point out that doing this introduces artifacts that they can hear. I can't hear anything but the music-and that's one of the reasons I rip at 320kbps.
Anyone who says they hear more artifacts due to a 128kbps AAC being re-encoded into 320kbps MP3 that weren't present in the original is a liar or missed the part of their youth where you stand next to the bass cabinet at a Nine Inch Nails / Led Zeppelin / Eagles concert. I have some $1,000 speaker wire to sell them.

Back on topic: I fully understand the DRM implications of purchasing tracks from iTunes, however, it has yet to really cause me a problem. Apple has done a pretty good job of making it as transparent as this kind of thing can be. I suppose it would become an issue if I ever decided to switch from iPod, however, I don't feel compelled enough by the competition to do so.

I have never purchased music from any other music service, because I've only ever owned iPod.
     
icruise
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Sep 20, 2006, 07:20 AM
 
A purist would never be downloading music in a lossy format anyway.

I do think re-encoding at 320kbps is overkill though. I would think 128kbps AAC is roughly equal to 192kbps MP3.
     
roders
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Sep 23, 2006, 07:51 PM
 
I use "eMusic", they sell Non Drm'd Mp3's that play on my Mac and iPod as well as my PC (they have a Mac client 4 downloads too), and they have really cheap subscription offers (without ties, also think they sell individual tracks too) too, the selection of music isn't (anywhere) as big as iTunes, but it's a lot more esoteric, which I like.
     
ghporter
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Sep 23, 2006, 08:06 PM
 
Originally Posted by Icruise
A purist would never be downloading music in a lossy format anyway.

I do think re-encoding at 320kbps is overkill though. I would think 128kbps AAC is roughly equal to 192kbps MP3.
Hard drive space is cheap, so I went whole hog. I actually did think about why I chose that rate though, and I figure if the audio system (hardware or software) between an audio CD and the MP3 encoder is worth anything, it's going to be pretty good-maybe really good-but not perfect. I'm depending on a lossy digital to lossless digital (WAV) conversion to make the CD, and then a lossless to lossy conversion (WAV to MP3) to rip the result, so if I'm going to err, it's going to be on the side of LOTS of extra data to fill in any theoretical gaps.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
musictracker  (op)
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Sep 23, 2006, 10:06 PM
 
Originally Posted by Icruise
A purist would never be downloading music in a lossy format anyway.

I do think re-encoding at 320kbps is overkill though. I would think 128kbps AAC is roughly equal to 192kbps MP3.
Awesome, I think I'm going to check them out. Thanks.
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blackbird_1.0
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Sep 24, 2006, 03:38 PM
 
I've also heard of a service called PodSafe Music.
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chabig
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Sep 24, 2006, 03:54 PM
 
Originally Posted by musictracker
Hey everyone. Just wondering... does it bother you that there are restrictions on what you can do with the songs you buy from iTunes?

E.g. you can only use them on your iPod and not on any other digital music player you might have... and you can only burn your songs onto CDs a limited number of times, etc.

Do any of you buy songs from other music stores, like, say Yahoo! Music Unlimited or eMusic.com, both of which I believe are free of these kinds of restrictions?
You haven't really listed any restrictions. The fact that you can only play iTunes music store songs on iPods isn't really a restriction. It's more a limitation of the other players.

And you're 100% wrong about burning to CD. There is no limit whatsoever on the number of times you can burn songs to CD.

Chris
     
icruise
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Sep 24, 2006, 06:28 PM
 
Originally Posted by chabig
And you're 100% wrong about burning to CD. There is no limit whatsoever on the number of times you can burn songs to CD.
Well, actually you are limited (slightly) in that you can't burn the exact same playlist more than 7 times. But if you change around your playlist you can burn the actual files any number of times.

I wrote an article on my blog outlining the FairPlay DRM rules, if anyone wants to read it.

http://icruise.wordpress.com/2006/07...drm-explained/
     
   
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