Non-DRM online mp3 stores

saint2e

Hey guys,

I'm looking to find an alternative to iTunes because I've had enough of DRM music. It's very restrictive and annoying most of the time. So I'd like to find a non-DRM online music store that has a decent library (I like Rock, Electronic, and Top40 stuff just for reference), and is easy to use?

I use www.beatport.com for my House/Trance/variant mp3s, and that's pretty good, but I'd like something a little more broader.

I was thinking of trying eMusic, but without seeing their library, I don't want to sign up.

Any advice?

EggyToast

Amazon? I've found they have a wider, but different, selection than iTunes. A lot of it crosses over, and I hear you -- I had some run-ins with some downloads that wouldn't download, but the problem was in the authorization -- the files were there on my computer, but iTunes wasn't recognizing them. It appeared to be a problem between my OS and the version of iTunes I was using, which made me realize "oh, this could break worse in the future.. dumb!"

So now I buy everything from Amazon. They're usually cheaper, and their downloader sends stuff right into iTunes anyway.

saint2e

I guess the wrinkle with Amazon is I'm in Canada, and Amazon.ca doesn't have the mp3 store... So that's not an option, sadly. They do appear to have a good selection though.

wunderbar

the only decent DRM free online music store you can access from Canada is eMusic. eMusic is all indie stuff, very, very little "top 40" type music. Unless you're really into indy stuff, what you'll find is that you can't find your artist, but can fine one that's similar. I tried eMusic for a month, but didn't like it.

This is why I buy CD's

Kate of Lokys

This kind of goes in the opposite direction of what you're looking for, but have you considered a subscription music service for your day-to-day listening? My boyfriend got a Zunepass working up here in Canada, and he absolutely loved it. High-speed on-demand streaming of just about every obscure band we could throw at the thing, and while the MP3s are DRMed, they played just fine on our Sansas. It's $15/month for all-you-can-eat music, which is the same price as 12-15 individual tracks on iTunes. Then if you do find something you like so much that you don't want to risk losing access to it, you can just buy the CD, and you'll have your own permanent hard copy that you can rip and re-rip as many times as you want.

saint2e

I did use Napster for a while, which is the same premise. I paid $15/month and could grab whatever I wanted. Unfortunately I have an iPhone as my mp3 player now, so napster doesn't work with it. Do you know of any such services that work with iPod/iPhone? Or is Apple a jerk and makes you use iTunes?

Crashtard

I'm going to go ahead and plug mp3fiesta.com. Whether or not you use it is up to you.