Money saving recommendation...
Dec. 27th, 2008 11:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
philmophlegmLet's say you fancy buying some music and one or more of the following criteria apply:
1. You're trying to save money - CDs are just too expensive.
2. You can't be bothered to brave the HMV sales.
3. Zavvi probably hasn't got any stock anyway after the Woolworths administration.
4. You don't want to have to wait for your music to arrive in the post.
5. You disapprove of digital rights management.
6. In particular, you don't like the idea of giving money to a company infamous for restrictive DRM, proprietary systems (and ridiculously smug adverts).
7. You don't want to visit dodgy-sounding download sites based in Russia.
Well, here's a way to get albums (from chart-toppers to rather more obscure stuff) for £3, with no digital rights management at all via download from a reputable online retailer...
It's Amazon's new digital download service.
And it's great. I've used it for the first time tonight. I suspect that the extraordinarily low prices are only for the short term, as a grabber to pull people away from the big 'i' (or should that be the little 'i'?), so you might want to visit sooner rather than later.
Even so, tonight I bought:
'English Guitar Music' by John Williams (I like a bit of classical guitar)
'The Best of Stevie Ray Vaughan' (and a bit of blues guitar)
'Blues Alive' by Gary Moore (ditto)
'Rising' by Rainbow (and a bit of classic rock)
'Missing...Presumed Having a Good Time' by the Notting Hillbillies (and I like most Mark Knopfler stuff)
'Lessons to be Learned' by Gabriella Cilmi (I liked the single 'Sweet About Me')
'Chinese Democracy', the new Guns 'n Roses album
'The Best of Al Stewart' (since wellinghall is always going on about him, and this was 17 songs for £3.98, I thought "What the hell?")
plus a couple of individual tracks for a grand total of just £27.67.
You download a tiny applet (about 600k or so) first (Windows, MacOS or Linux). Then you buy the songs / albums in the normal Amazon way, but when you get past the checkout, the applet kicks in and handles the downloads for you. It then puts them into either Windows Media Player or iTunes for you automatically. The whole thing is seamless.
And best of all, the files that you download are DRM-free .mp3 files. You can do whatever you want with them (except transfer them, which is forbidden by the terms of use). You can copy them to as many devices as you want. And because the files are industry-standard .mp3 files, even standards averse implements like iPods and iPhones will play them.
Brilliant.
1. You're trying to save money - CDs are just too expensive.
2. You can't be bothered to brave the HMV sales.
3. Zavvi probably hasn't got any stock anyway after the Woolworths administration.
4. You don't want to have to wait for your music to arrive in the post.
5. You disapprove of digital rights management.
6. In particular, you don't like the idea of giving money to a company infamous for restrictive DRM, proprietary systems (and ridiculously smug adverts).
7. You don't want to visit dodgy-sounding download sites based in Russia.
Well, here's a way to get albums (from chart-toppers to rather more obscure stuff) for £3, with no digital rights management at all via download from a reputable online retailer...
It's Amazon's new digital download service.
And it's great. I've used it for the first time tonight. I suspect that the extraordinarily low prices are only for the short term, as a grabber to pull people away from the big 'i' (or should that be the little 'i'?), so you might want to visit sooner rather than later.
Even so, tonight I bought:
'English Guitar Music' by John Williams (I like a bit of classical guitar)
'The Best of Stevie Ray Vaughan' (and a bit of blues guitar)
'Blues Alive' by Gary Moore (ditto)
'Rising' by Rainbow (and a bit of classic rock)
'Missing...Presumed Having a Good Time' by the Notting Hillbillies (and I like most Mark Knopfler stuff)
'Lessons to be Learned' by Gabriella Cilmi (I liked the single 'Sweet About Me')
'Chinese Democracy', the new Guns 'n Roses album
'The Best of Al Stewart' (since wellinghall is always going on about him, and this was 17 songs for £3.98, I thought "What the hell?")
plus a couple of individual tracks for a grand total of just £27.67.
You download a tiny applet (about 600k or so) first (Windows, MacOS or Linux). Then you buy the songs / albums in the normal Amazon way, but when you get past the checkout, the applet kicks in and handles the downloads for you. It then puts them into either Windows Media Player or iTunes for you automatically. The whole thing is seamless.
And best of all, the files that you download are DRM-free .mp3 files. You can do whatever you want with them (except transfer them, which is forbidden by the terms of use). You can copy them to as many devices as you want. And because the files are industry-standard .mp3 files, even standards averse implements like iPods and iPhones will play them.
Brilliant.
