eMusic and Amazon: A Match Made in Heaven

I have honestly not illegally downloaded music in years, I don’t believe in it. I feel that the record labels that support the artists I enjoy deserve my money, too. So I buy my music legally. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a rip off to pay $15-$20 for a CD, so I buy my music digitally. That way I get the cheaper prices and the labels and artists still get supported.

The cheapest place I have found to download music is eMusic, which offers subscriptions plans for credits to download music. The plan I have is $9.99 for 30 downloads a month, it means that I can download 30 tracks at only$0.33 each. On top of that their DRM Free which means that I can use them on any mp3 player, put them on as many computers as I want, and burn them an unlimited amount of times.

The downside of eMusic is that since it is DRM Free and so cheap, a lot of major labels will not sell their music with them. They mostly have music on independent labels or larger labels older catalog. So when I couldn’t find it on eMusic I usually would have to go to someone like iTunes to get the music. But that meant that I would have to pay more for music that had DRM. Which I never like to do so I only did it on the rare occasions when I really wanted an album.

Amazon Mp3 has come to my rescue and is now offering DRM free music, from major and Indie labels for only $0.89 each. That is $0.10 less then iTunes and it’s DRM Free! Now when I can’t find it on eMusic I will just got to Amazon next. That way I still get DRM Free music legally and at a decent price.

Finally there is a decent alternative to the iTunes music store. Maybe now more labels will take DRM Free music seriously. If I pay for something I do not want to be limited to what I can do with it. All DRM does is punish the people that buy music legally and sadly most major labels don’t realize that.

Note: Amazon Mp3 link is am affiliate link.