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Amazon takes on Apple with copy-protection-free music

news.yahoo.com — Amazon's MP3 store - which sells only songs without copy protection - has quietly become No. 2 in digital sales since opening nearly six months ago.

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46 days ago, made popular 46 days ago
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  • [below viewing threshold, show comment]  -10 diggs
    Sevenduolux  by Sevenduolux on 03/26/2008
    Apples stock is not going to have as easy of a time as it once did.
  • [below viewing threshold, show comment]  -26 diggs
    I1969  by I1969 on 03/26/2008
    Cool, but one area where Amazon has some trouble compared to Apple is UI, not to mention the missing hardware pieces -- the iPhone and iPod.
  • +45 diggsBuryDigg
    WiseWeasel  by WiseWeasel on 03/26/2008
    Sweet; this goes a long way towards validating the notion that DRM is inhibiting digital music sales. I've used the Amazon MP3 store, and it's wonderful to have the option. Maybe it can light a fire under Apple's ass to get ALL their music in "iTunes Plus" (DRM-free 256kbit AAC audio) format, and kill their 128kbit DRM'd files once and for all. Personally, I use Amazon for any music unavailable in iTunes Plus format. I'd use Amazon for everything, just so I don't have to worry about whether or not it's DRM'd when I'm buying music, but AAC compression is higher quality than MP3. It would be great if Amazon could offer their songs in 256kbit AAC format as well...
    • +33 diggsBuryDigg
      fangorious  by fangorious on 03/27/2008
      It's not up to Apple what is sold without DRM, the licensor of the content makes the decision. Warner, Sony, and Universal all pretty much decided to license DRM-free sales through Amazon and not iTunes for the express purpose of weakening Apple's market position and negotiating power. EMI is the only one of the Big Four to license their catalog to both Apple and Amazon for DRM-free sales. So if you want to open up the rest of the catalog, only buy EMI, and write to the other three to tell them why.
      • +7 diggsBuryDigg
        WiseWeasel  by WiseWeasel on 03/27/2008
        That's what I currently do, only buying the Plus tracks from iTunes. Still though, Apple could apply a huge amount of pressure on the other labels, maybe one at a time, by threatening to drop all their content from the iTunes store until they agree to the iTunes Plus conditions. Those DRM tracks need to be put to death.
        • +12 diggsBuryDigg
          epyon180  by epyon180 on 03/27/2008
          The labels don't care if their content get's dropped form itunes. It would hurt Apple more, just look at NBC they willingly dropped out of itunes and opted out of a solid revenue source to start a flash website. The music labels hate apple because they can't call all the shots, you better believe that the labels wouldn't mind charging twice as much for music but Apple set the precedent at one dollar. The big execs are supporting Amazon with the hopes that it will over take itunes so they can call the shots again.
          • 0 diggsBuryDigg
            Ajajadude  by Ajajadude on 03/27/2008
            I bet they'd care if their music wasn't being sold through the more heavily used apps and web sites. Considering how online music purchases have been killing CD sales, it's going to have to be a major concern for record labels if they want to stay competitive.
          • -4 diggsBuryDigg
            WiseWeasel  by WiseWeasel on 03/27/2008
            iTunes Music Store is currently the #2 music retailer in the US, right behind Walmart and quickly catching up to it. It will probably be the #1 music retailer very shortly now. As such, the labels have a huge amount to lose if Apple drops them.

            Surely there's something to be said for song pricing flexibility, and I would agree that Apple is overstepping its authority by fixing the prices of someone else's works, and that Apple should back down from the pricing limits just to get the DRM-free content on their store. I say give the studios enough slack to hang themselves with exorbitant pricing, and maybe people will choose to buy from independents hungry to sell their tracks at lower pricing. In the meantime, I'm sure Apple would get a higher cut from the higher-priced tracks, so I doubt they have much to lose by caving on this issue.
          • 0 diggsBuryDigg
            epyon180  by epyon180 on 03/27/2008
            In a perfect world your comment would make sense but for right now I don't want to deal with labels increasing their prices so Im sticking with apple.
          • 0 diggsBuryDigg
            seneyr  by seneyr on 03/27/2008
            You're conveniently forgetting that NBC came back within 3 months. With their tails between their legs.
          • +1 diggsBuryDigg
            epyon180  by epyon180 on 03/27/2008
            NBC never came back you ***** idiot.
        • +3 diggsBuryDigg
          cleverboy  by cleverboy on 03/27/2008
          Yes. Apple has LITTLE leverage to "force" labels into allowing them to sell DRM-free too. --Especially when making Amazon rise is part of the "plan" of the studios to stop Apple's considerable influence. This isn't even conjecture. They've specifically SAID this.
      • +1 diggsBuryDigg
        seneyr  by seneyr on 03/27/2008
        Am I the only one who thinks that sounds like mafia or cartel tactics being put to use by the labels?
    • +24 diggsBuryDigg
      bdbr  by bdbr on 03/27/2008
      The odds that you could tell the difference between Amazon's 256kbps MP3 and Apple's 256kbps AAC in a double-blind test are near zero.
      • [below viewing threshold, show comment]  -12 diggs
        WiseWeasel  by WiseWeasel on 03/27/2008
        Not true. I actually bought a track from both stores, just to compare, and the difference was noticeable. MP3 lacks a lot of the warmth and depth of AAC at the same bitrate, even up at 256kbit. I can clearly hear distortion and clipping in the MP3 version where the AAC version sounds good. Maybe it was a glitch with the particular recording I tried, but I've often been disappointed with the quality of MP3 encodings, including the ones I encode myself from CD, even at very high bitrates. Ripping to AAC is a significant improvement.
      • +4 diggsBuryDigg
        mrsteveman1  by mrsteveman1 on 03/27/2008
        The bitrate isn't the issue. I've gotten some 256kbps tracks that sounded like they were passed through skype before being given to me. It might just be that someone somewhere is incompetent and screwed up the tracks during recording or distribution, some CDs i have sound terrible even before ripping them.
    • [below viewing threshold, show comment]  -5 diggs
      daradib  by daradib on 03/27/2008
    • +9 diggsBuryDigg
      bdbr  by bdbr on 03/27/2008
      The #2 reseller of digital downloads has always been DRM-free. Its eMusic.com. This reporting is terribly inaccurate - Amazon didn't even say how many downloads they sold. eMusic sold 7 million songs last month.
    • +3 diggsBuryDigg
      jsg7  by jsg7 on 03/27/2008
      Not to promote piracy, but why is it that I have to support the music industry if they aren't willing to sell their DRM-free music where it is most convenient for me to buy it?
    • +1 diggsBuryDigg
      skeletorcares  by skeletorcares on 03/27/2008
      Don't forget the iTunes plus files still contain your personal information. And it is up to apple how they want to sell their music. They just write the contracts that way so you have to buy ipods and iphones to play their ***** locked format. Cuz god knows no other products play m4ps from iTutes. I'm glad people are finally starting to catch on to their ***** marketing oriented ways though.
      • +1 diggsBuryDigg
        MacParrot  by MacParrot on 03/27/2008
        Are you really that stupid and blind? Apple sells content owned by other companies. THOSE companies dictate what form Apple and everyone else will sell that content. Apple uses the AAC format for audio content but they do not OWN it. Heard of Google? Trying using it sometime before saying something so colossally dense.
        • +2 diggsBuryDigg
          skeletorcares  by skeletorcares on 03/27/2008
          ^^^ comment auto blocked i'm sure it's retarded ^^^ macParrot is the worst, most ignorant fanboy out there, with no common sense,its not even worth wasting my time reading what the idiot says. Check out his wicket disgusting site, its as bland and stupid as he is.
  • +101 diggsBuryDigg
    adrianblack  by adrianblack on 03/26/2008
    I buy from Amazon and love it. 256kbps bit rate, MP3 encoded using LAME, includes album art. And no copy protection. What more could you ask for?

    I have several devices that do not support AAC, so I have no interest in buying unprotected AAC files. If Apple wants to go that way -- they should offer a choice between AAC and MP3 and let the consumer choose.
    • +23 diggsBuryDigg
      hadiz  by hadiz on 03/27/2008
      This is exactly my dilemma. My car plays MP3 or WMA data discs, but obviously if I have downloaded from iTunes I have to either break the DRM somehow and convert it, or burn the songs and rip them and waste a CD. I always check if a song I want is available on Amazon's mp3 store first, then use iTunes as a backup.
      • +5 diggsBuryDigg
        WiseWeasel  by WiseWeasel on 03/27/2008
        iTunes Plus tracks are DRM-free 256kbit AAC, so you can just use iTunes (or other conversion apps) to convert from AAC to MP3 if needed (set the import settings in the iTunes preferences to the MP3 settings you want, then select 'Convert selection to MP3' from the 'Advanced' menu). It's only the old 128kbit DRM'd non-'Plus' tracks that need to be converted by burning to CD first.

        AAC is a much more recent format than MP3, with improved compression, giving you significantly higher quality recordings at a given bitrate. As such, it's better to distribute the music in the higher quality standard format, and let people convert to MP3, than to sell MP3 and convert to AAC, since the audio information lost when compressing to MP3 cannot be recovered. Not that I mind Amazon providing songs in MP3 format, but given the option between a vendor offering DRM-free 256kbit AAC recordings and one selling DRM-free 256kbit MP3, I'd always pick the former.
        • +9 diggsBuryDigg
          RoboHobo  by RoboHobo on 03/27/2008
          AAC is a technically superior format, but its advantages over mp3 are not readily apparent at higher bit rates. There are very few people who could identify either 256k AAC or lame -v0 MP3 from the source. Plenty of people claim to be able to, but few are able to back their claims up with a proper ABX test.

          MP3’s only real advantage over AAC is universal support, so it’s easy to see why Amazon chose it. That said, it would be great if Amazon could offer AAC and other (some form of lossless?) formats in the future.
        • +10 diggsBuryDigg
          pixelate  by pixelate on 03/27/2008
          The sound quality he would give up by transcoding to MP3 for certain uses greatly outweighs the miniscule difference between 256 kbps AAC and MP3 in the first place. It makes zero sense for hadiz to buy from iTunes.
      • +1 diggsBuryDigg
        HonoredMule  by HonoredMule on 03/27/2008
        There's probably a way you could set up a virtual drive such that telling iTunes to burn a CD would actually be "burning" to an ISO on your hard drive. Then there's no need to muck about with CDs (although it's still stupid to have to perform such an inane circumvention anyway).
        • 0 diggsBuryDigg
          MScrip  by MScrip on 03/27/2008
          There is... it sets up a virtual cd burner, fools iTunes into "burning" the tracks, then saves them in mp3, wav, etc...

          I used it at the dance studio. We buy a lot of songs on iTunes, and I need them as WAVs to cut and edit them. It sure beats wasting a CD for one song.

          The program is called ShareDRMusic
    • +8 diggsBuryDigg
      artisresistance  by artisresistance on 03/27/2008
      "What more could you ask for?"

      Lossless. Why is it so difficult to offer this? Yeah, the tracks are a lot bigger, but it still wouldn't take very long to download.
      • -4 diggsBuryDigg
        mrsteveman1  by mrsteveman1 on 03/27/2008
        You mean increasing the download time by a factor of 10 isn't too long? It's a significant increase in transfer, which Apple or Amazon then have to pay for with the razor thin margins they get right now from sales.

        Increasing the amount of data transfered by a factor of 10 is huge and costly.
        • +3 diggsBuryDigg
          homeagain1  by homeagain1 on 03/27/2008
          10 times? No, more like 3 times. Besides, it's a small market – just audio enthusiasts, basically. It's not like most people care for lossless. It should be relatively painless to offer as an alternative download. Besides, they should cost a little more to compensate for the bandwidth anyway.
      • +1 diggsBuryDigg
        drlha  by drlha on 03/27/2008
        Because only a small cabal of geeks give a ***** about lossless. That and bandwidth isn't free.
      • 0 diggsBuryDigg
        HonoredMule  by HonoredMule on 03/27/2008
        Huge file sizes = huge bandwidth costs.

        Someone would probably offer such a service if they thought there were enough interested consumers willing to pony up the extra cash that would be required to cover cost of operation, but I'm betting the market isn't there.
    • [below viewing threshold, show comment]  -7 diggs
      epyon180  by epyon180 on 03/27/2008
      Would you care to tell us about the devices you have that don't support AAC?
    • +3 diggsBuryDigg
      bossm4n  by bossm4n on 03/27/2008
      And their interface is excellent. You can preview each tune, quickly, then just click to purchase and download. Even the Amazon MP3 downloader works well if you don't want to do it manually.
    • +2 diggsBuryDigg
      KillSudo  by KillSudo on 03/27/2008
      FLAC
    • -1 diggsBuryDigg
      skeletorcares  by skeletorcares on 03/27/2008
      At least 256K. some are 320. thats right, ***** apple and its drm. Apple gives the lowest percent of sales to artists of any medium anyways. Even if amazon gives the artists the same ***** cut... its still not apple. Apple = dying. Dying in computers, they are as ***** as ever just with a shiny new image. iPods getting edged out in the competitive market now. i'm so happy amazon is also edging them out of their music monopoly. iPhones have a huge surplus at ATT stores. DIE APPLE DIE!!! YAY!!!
      • +3 diggsBuryDigg
        MacParrot  by MacParrot on 03/27/2008
        Holy crap, even the mentally disabled laugh at an idiot like you
      • +2 diggsBuryDigg
        daGUY  by daGUY on 03/27/2008
        Last quarter Apple sold 2.3 million Macs (a new record), 22 million iPods, and 2.3 million iPhones, generating a revenue of $9.6 billion (also a new record in the history of the company). iTunes has sold over 4 billion songs to 50 million customers since its release, making it the second-largest music retailer in the US (only behind Walmart). When OS X 10.5 (Leopard) was released last October, they sold 2 million copies in three days, the most successful operating system release in their history.

        Sure sounds like they're dying to me!
      • +1 diggsBuryDigg
        cthellis  by cthellis on 03/27/2008
        Do you actually realize just how wrong each and every one of your comments was?

        That being the case, I'm rather hoping you're just trolling. But you can never easily tell, with the amount of rabid, frothing Apple haters out there.
    • +1 diggsBuryDigg
      fakeollie  by fakeollie on 03/27/2008
      You could ask for the end of geographic restrictions. Amazon doesn't sell to customers outside the USA. Amazon, iTunes and other digital stores don't have to abide to this arcane model of distribution. You don't need to open a different Amazon/iTunes store with a subset catalog for each and every country. That only applies when you have a physical object to manufacture and ship and stock. The music industry still haven't figured that out. Availability, convenience and pricing are the key. And the illegal path has all of those to their advantage.

      The internet is the market, not any single country or region. It's a long tail market so adjust the prices accordingly. And keep in mind: every release is a worldwide release now, every catalog is a worldwide catalog.
      • -1 diggsBuryDigg
        MacParrot  by MacParrot on 03/27/2008
        Actually that's not true at least as far as iTunes goes. In every country that Apple has an iTunes store, they've had to negotiate with content copyright holders to sell their content. Still sucks it has to be that way though.
  • +53 diggsBuryDigg
    ProjectGSX  by ProjectGSX on 03/27/2008
    I buy all of my music from Amazon. Great service. I refuse to buy music in proprietary formats.
    • +26 diggsBuryDigg
      sloppychris  by sloppychris on 03/27/2008
      MP3 technically is proprietary. I assume you mean DRM free, which I agree with.
    • +9 diggsBuryDigg
      fanboydcs  by fanboydcs on 03/27/2008
      AAC is not proprietary, MP3 is and AAC sounds better and any music device worth a damn can play AAC just fine.
    • +11 diggsBuryDigg
      bdbr  by bdbr on 03/27/2008
      Anyone that works in any technical area knows that there are thousands (maybe millions) of standards that happen to be approved by a standards committee, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're universally supported. AAC is one of those - its not technically proprietary, but its far from universally supported.

      MP3 is what is termed a DE FACTO standard. Just try and find something that plays other formats but not MP3.
      • -1 diggsBuryDigg
        theurge14  by theurge14 on 03/27/2008
        MP3 wasn't universally supported not that long ago. Remember ATRAC? AAC/MP4 files sound better at smaller sizes than MP3. There's no good reason not to support it now. And most mainstream devices now do, iPods, Zunes, PSPs, etc.
      • +1 diggsBuryDigg
        mrsteveman1  by mrsteveman1 on 03/27/2008
        AAC and MP3 are both proprietary in that they may require licensing to implement, but that doesn't make them closed formats etc.
      • +3 diggsBuryDigg
        bdbr  by bdbr on 03/27/2008
        Most mainstream devices? You mean like players from the #2 and #3 Sansa and Creative? Oops, no they don't. How about the CD players in most cars? Most new cars come with CD players that play MP3 but I don't know of ANY that play AAC.
        • +2 diggsBuryDigg
          MacParrot  by MacParrot on 03/27/2008
          Yes but they do play that open standard .wma. Oh wait
        • +1 diggsBuryDigg
          fakeollie  by fakeollie on 03/27/2008
          Microsoft being Microsoft (big pockets, market bullying), they subsidize WMA/WMV licensing for gadgets and appliances in order to acquire marketshare gain for their platform of digital media solutions (because it eventually would translate into more license sales and adoption of other Microsoft-owned technologies, such as Microsoft Windows, Windows Media Player, etc). AAC being a child of many parents, the greediest of them Fraunhofer and Dolby, have no such agenda to push, and live exclusive off licensing and royalties fees. So they don't subsidize anything.
          Since there's no universal consumer demand for AAC (not nearly as much as MP3), you always see more Car Players, Portable Gadgets, DVD Players playing WMA than you see playing AAC. It's just cheaper for manufacturers.
    • +2 diggsBuryDigg
      bdbr  by bdbr on 03/27/2008
      eMusic FTW! I'll get music from Amazon if its not on eMusic, but you can't beat eMusic's prices. That's why THEY are #2. Of course, if you ask the RIAA labels (like this reporter did), eMusic doesn't even exist.
  • +9 diggsBuryDigg
    MrWhite7  by MrWhite7 on 03/27/2008
    What few realize is that the music purchased from Amazon is licensed solely to the purchasor and that license is non-transferrable. Food for thought.
    • +11 diggsBuryDigg
      grumpyrain  by grumpyrain on 03/27/2008
      How does this compare to iTunes restrictions?
      /serious question
      • +2 diggsBuryDigg
        WiseWeasel  by WiseWeasel on 03/27/2008
        iTunes also does not allow you to transfer your purchases. Resale rights seem to be going the way of the dodo with purely digital media. Maybe it'll make a comeback once someone invents the perfect DRM system, so people can't keep working copies after selling the "originals"...
      • +2 diggsBuryDigg
        fangorious  by fangorious on 03/27/2008
        iTunes does not expressly forbid transferring your license as Amazon does. But so far the only way to do so is to transfer ownership of your iTunes account as far as I'm aware.
      • +7 diggsBuryDigg
        Firehed  by Firehed on 03/27/2008
        Or any other downloaded product, for that matter?

        At least Amazon's is effectively unenforceable since it's DRM-free, though we all know that the "I'll delete it" thing is nonsense, just like swapping CDs once people figured out how to rip them. And tapes. And making photocopies of textbook chapters. Etc.
      • +4 diggsBuryDigg
        bdbr  by bdbr on 03/27/2008
        From Apple terms of service: "You agree not to modify, rent, lease, loan, sell, distribute, or create derivative works based on the Service, in any manner".

        Technically you violate Apple's terms if you even loan your iPod to someone.
        • +1 diggsBuryDigg
          WiseWeasel  by WiseWeasel on 03/27/2008
          I think 'loan' implies profit. They don't forbid lending...
        • +1 diggsBuryDigg
          bdbr  by bdbr on 03/27/2008
          Loan doesn't imply profit...and even if you do want to consider the possibility of it implying something, "in any manner" means, well, in ANY manner - including loaning it without money.
      • +3 diggsBuryDigg
        fangorious  by fangorious on 03/27/2008
        Someone has re-sold an iTunes track before, to complete the sale he had to transfer ownership of his iTunes account. Granted this was 4.5 years ago, so this may no longer be possible.

        http://www.news.com/Apple-customer-resells-iTunes- ...
        • 0 diggsBuryDigg
          OrangeSoda31  by OrangeSoda31 on 03/27/2008
          "George Hotelling, a Web developer in Ann Arbor, Mich., on Tuesday reported the details of the transfer on his Web log." There was actually a time when they called them "Web Logs"?
      • +2 diggsBuryDigg
        epyon180  by epyon180 on 03/27/2008
        But I thought that itunes and Apple were evil and the best music store EVER was with Amazon?
    • +5 diggsBuryDigg
      bdbr  by bdbr on 03/27/2008
      I doubt you'll find any legitimate music download service that doesn't have those terms. The music industry fought hard to make it illegal to resell used records & CDs (because they don't profit from it), but they lost that battle. Now its a new battle, and they're winning because no one's bothering to fight it.
    • +1 diggsBuryDigg
      ButchersBoy  by ButchersBoy on 03/27/2008
      And?
  • +33 diggsBuryDigg
    TheSesom  by TheSesom on 03/27/2008
    Some competition is exactly what the iTMS needs. More competition = more win. Now if only every song could be DRM free.... if only...
  • +6 diggsBuryDigg
    mackie99  by mackie99 on 03/27/2008
    I would like to know why the record industry will let Amazon sell DRM-free music but not the other services (iTunes, Rhapsody, Napster, etc.).
    • +10 diggsBuryDigg
      fangorious  by fangorious on 03/27/2008
      EMI licenses to both iTunes and Amazon for DRM-free sales. The other three are colluding to weaken Apple's market strength to negotiate contracts less consumer friendly next time they come up for renewal.
      • +3 diggsBuryDigg
        mackie99  by mackie99 on 03/27/2008
        I understand EMI licenses to both. But how can the other license only to Amazon. How is that fair or even legal?
      • +9 diggsBuryDigg
        epyon180  by epyon180 on 03/27/2008
        People make amazon sound like this amazing service while not realizing that labels helped make it what it is. The itunes store would be completely DRM free at a higher quality (AAC) with a superior UI if it wasn't for the dirty labels.
      • +1 diggsBuryDigg
        theHM  by theHM on 03/27/2008
        Except that the price of tracks has lowered with the inclusion of Amazon in the market. The record labels want Apple to have more competition, just as consumers do. This won't increase consumer cost; it'll decrease Apple (and Amazon's) profit margin.
        • 0 diggsBuryDigg
          epyon180  by epyon180 on 03/27/2008
          That makes perfect sense, the record labels want more competition to lower their profit ! The record labels have never cared about the consumer.
          • +1 diggsBuryDigg
            theHM  by theHM on 03/28/2008
            The record labels want more competition between the retailers to increase the amount they can charge for the tracks. At the same time, more competition between retailers reduces the price that they will charge to consumers. There's a balance to be reached. Assuming that the retailers (Amazon, Apple, Rhapsody etc) don't price-fix (which is illegal), the consumers will ultimately pay less for the same service. Apple's initial monopoly was required when the music companies didn't see the value of relatively-cheap online retail outlets. Now that the music companies know it's important, the increased competition drives down prices.
    • -4 diggsBuryDigg
      andrew522  by andrew522 on 03/27/2008
      the other services are slowly progressing to that area.
      Rhapsody sells some stuff without DRM, iTunes has a selection without DRM (though you will pay dearly)
      • +2 diggsBuryDigg
        fangorious  by fangorious on 03/27/2008
        there's no price premium over the 128 kbps files with DRM, and on average individual tracks are $0.10 more on iTunes than Amazon.
    • +1 diggsBuryDigg
      thenumber8  by thenumber8 on 03/27/2008
      they wanted to build up a serious competitor to iTunes, so that obviously rules out iTunes as an option. Then you could say why not let all the others have DRM free but then that would spread out the effect and defeat the goal of creating an iTunes competitor
  • +11 diggsBuryDigg
    ibone  by ibone on 03/27/2008
    This is excellent. No more itunes for me, now I can use my music on all my players.
    • 0 diggsBuryDigg
      thenumber8  by thenumber8 on 03/27/2008
      try out songbird, still in beta, but one day it's gunna be fierce
    • 0 diggsBuryDigg
      sadilak  by sadilak on 03/27/2008
      Hey, but I guess you need Itunes if you have the IPod Touch right? Unless there are any apps that can actually transfer music to and from the touch
  • +5 diggsBuryDigg
    stutimandal  by stutimandal on 03/27/2008
    It is obvious since amazon's rates are competitive, mp3 trouble-free and high quality, no iTunes and such forced helper applications. And amazon has a few million user base -- which means they just need to put a board at amazon.com to tell about mp3 selling.
  • +35 diggsBuryDigg
    Flashman  by Flashman on 03/27/2008
    Dear Amazon, please roll out this service world wide! We're stuck with iTunes in many other countries.
    • 0 diggsBuryDigg
      dboyd13  by dboyd13 on 03/27/2008
      Yeah, and many countries don't even have an iTunes store.
  • +6 diggsBuryDigg
    BamaStangGuy  by BamaStangGuy on 03/27/2008
    Just used Amazon for the first time today when it comes to dl music. I used to use Apple when I could rip the drm out. They stopped that though, so I stopped buying from them.
    • -4 diggsBuryDigg
      fangorious  by fangorious on 03/27/2008
      Do you not know they sell music at 256 kbps with no DRM, for the same price? Just look for the iTunes Plus label.