Pay sites for music

[Ranger12 46]

How many of you guys have really looked into all the music download paysites? Man I have and I am disgusted. I tried most of them with their free trial periods and they all stunk. They offer "monthly subscriptions" for "unlimited streamings and/or downloads to your computer", but if you want to transfer a song to a MP3 player or burn it to a CD they want you to pay another small fee. I actually like the way Itunes is setup with their monthly subscriptions, but if you don't have an Ipod (I have a RIO Nitrus), you can't transfer the songs to your player. EMusic has different levels where you are allowed a certain amount of downloads per month in which you can do what you like with them, but their library is horrible.

I would like to pay for music legitimately, but I be dang if I am going to go by a whole CD for one song I may need. I am a big classic rock fan and some of those songs are hard to find in the store, especially all those one hit wonders.

The recording industry is going to have a big problem in a few years. With the advancing technology of satellite radio, in a couple of years, you will be able to setup your radio to record a certain song or artist when it comes on. Then you will be able to rip it on whatever you like. That is kind of like back in the day when you would wait for a certain song to come on and you would hit the record on your cassette player, except far more advanced and easier. What are they going to about that then? They can't shut the satellite radio industry down, no more the the Motion Picture Association could shut down satellite TV with TIVO/DVR.

[BamaGrad03 0]

Actually...i like the 99cent I tunes and www.buymusic.com

there is an EAAAAASY work around for those like buymusic.com who make you get a "liscense" for other devices...just do this ranger...

Download the mp3's you want....and a license to put them on your pc or whatever...then burn them as wav...like a normal audio cd. And then rip em back to mp3 BAM no license, put em anywhere ya want! (i know kind of a pain, but it works)

[TitanTiger 20,484]

www.apple.com/itunes

No subscription. Tracks are 99 cents. Most full albums are under $10, and they have over 700,000 songs available and growing. Can't beat it. And the AAC audio codec gives the best sound quality to file size ratio out there. MUCH better than MP3 and less restrictions than some of the sites that use WMA.

And with iTunes, you can convert them to MP3 for non iPod players. You just burn them to a disc, then reimport them in MP3 format.

Buy.com and Walmart.com are pretty good also, but they do use the WMA codec.

[BamaGrad03 0]

What he said

[Ranger12 46]

www.apple.com/itunes

No subscription.  Tracks are 99 cents.  Most full albums are under $10, and they have over 700,000 songs available and growing.  Can't beat it.  And the AAC audio codec gives the best sound quality to file size ratio out there.  MUCH better than MP3 and less restrictions than some of the sites that use WMA.

And with iTunes, you can convert them to MP3 for non iPod players.  You just burn them to a disc, then reimport them in MP3 format.

Buy.com and Walmart.com are pretty good also, but they do use the WMA codec.

So, I have to burn them to a CD first, then rip it back as an MP3? I didn't think about that. I like Itunes the best, just did not like the fact I could not transfer straight to my mp3 player. However, I am more in favor of subscriptions rather then pay per download. If somebody that has a good library of music would come out with a monthly subscription that covers unlimited downloads each month, I would be all for that. The "99 cents" here and "99 cents" there would bug the hell out of me when trying to balance out my checkbook. I guess it is more just my preference then it is the way the sites are made up. I am a "just let me a pay a fee and be done with it" type of guy.

[BamaGrad03 0]

or you could buy 10-12 songs or an album at once...then its 10 dollars instead of a bunch of 99 cents charges.

[TitanTiger 20,484]

www.apple.com/itunes

No subscription.  Tracks are 99 cents.  Most full albums are under $10, and they have over 700,000 songs available and growing.  Can't beat it.  And the AAC audio codec gives the best sound quality to file size ratio out there.  MUCH better than MP3 and less restrictions than some of the sites that use WMA.

And with iTunes, you can convert them to MP3 for non iPod players.  You just burn them to a disc, then reimport them in MP3 format.

Buy.com and Walmart.com are pretty good also, but they do use the WMA codec.

So, I have to burn them to a CD first, then rip it back as an MP3? I didn't think about that. I like Itunes the best, just did not like the fact I could not transfer straight to my mp3 player. However, I am more in favor of subscriptions rather then pay per download. If somebody that has a good library of music would come out with a monthly subscription that covers unlimited downloads each month, I would be all for that. The "99 cents" here and "99 cents" there would bug the hell out of me when trying to balance out my checkbook. I guess it is more just my preference then it is the way the sites are made up. I am a "just let me a pay a fee and be done with it" type of guy.

With iTunes, you set up your account with a credit card anyway, so it shouldn't be a problem having a bunch of 99 cent entries in your checkbook. And BG's right, if you buy several songs at a time, you get one charge for all of them, not several 99 cent charges on your card.

And a monthly fee with unlimited downloading and no restrictions on moving them to your MP3 player or burning them to CDs is not going to happen. It just doesn't make economic sense for the labels so any site that does that will end up with a very scarce catalog of the good stuff or they'll just go out of business. It's just not a sustainable business model.