eMusic: Legal DRM-free MP3s for $0.33 per song or less
eMusic is a music download site that lets you buy songs in DRM-free MP3 format by means of a monthly subscription that lets you keep your downloaded songs (i.e., they don't disappear if you end your subscription) for $0.33 or less per song. Apparently they're number two behind the iTunes Store, having just hit their 100 millionth download this week.
eMusic recently snagged me with the 25 free-of-charge songs they give you to try out their service. (By the way, if you want to join, send me an email at vp at-sign vincent pace dot info and I'll invite you. If you become a subscriber, I get 50 free songs. Spread the joy (to me) this holiday season.)
Anyway, they give you a two-week trial period in which you can download 25 free songs. You have to supply a credit card, which I did. If you don't cancel before the two-week trial period ends, your subscription begins. I can confirm to you that it's easy to cancel, should you want to do so; just click on Your Account at the top of the page, click on Change Account Status on the left side of the page, and then you get to the cancellation process. The only thing I couldn't find was an obvious way to downgrade your account from premium to basic or plus (see below).
Now this isn't the typical subscription service under which your songs just up and disappear when you stop subscribing; these songs are yours to keep after the subscription ends. They're in DRM-free MP3 format, meaning that you don't have to hassle with any annoying restrictions (here they've even got the iTunes Store beat).
eMusic offers you three subscription plans, which compare to iTunes as follows:
Probably the biggest drawback is the smaller selection than the iTunes Store. It seems that few major music stars are to be found, although I had little trouble digging up the ancient Bing Crosby Christmas album I was looking for. Some other big names include Ya Lo Tengo and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Clearly you can see that mainstream artists haven't ventured here yet.
However, for those classical fans out there, this site seems to be geared towards you, with classical music search options featuring right in the search mechanism of the website.
I would suggest a few improvements. By far, the most important drawback of eMusic is its lack of integration with iTunes. eMusic doesn't provide you with a jukebox program (and thankfully so, since there's very little chance that they'd be able to pull off anything as good as iTunes). When you download a song from eMusic, it's just plopped down somewhere on your hard drive and you have to put it into iTunes yourself. Back when I frequented Limewire I remember that it used to put songs right into iTunes in a new play list, something that would be particularly suitable for eMusic as well. But I would take it a step farther, by making eMusic's default file naming conventions the same as iTunes. To take it a step further, eMusic should make sure all the MP3 tags are the same as those in iTunes songs and, as a kicker, automatically download album artwork (which is not included in your eMusic download).
Overall, I'm sold. There's enough good stuff in here to keep a music lover happy, and, thank goodness, it's all DRM free. While it's certainly not going to replace the iTunes Store, it certainly is a nice supplement that has many of the songs that are on the iTunes Store.
Relatedly, here are ten good reasons why a content provider would choose to avoid using DRM and here is a list of DRM-free-content providers.
eMusic recently snagged me with the 25 free-of-charge songs they give you to try out their service. (By the way, if you want to join, send me an email at vp at-sign vincent pace dot info and I'll invite you. If you become a subscriber, I get 50 free songs. Spread the joy (to me) this holiday season.)
Anyway, they give you a two-week trial period in which you can download 25 free songs. You have to supply a credit card, which I did. If you don't cancel before the two-week trial period ends, your subscription begins. I can confirm to you that it's easy to cancel, should you want to do so; just click on Your Account at the top of the page, click on Change Account Status on the left side of the page, and then you get to the cancellation process. The only thing I couldn't find was an obvious way to downgrade your account from premium to basic or plus (see below).
Now this isn't the typical subscription service under which your songs just up and disappear when you stop subscribing; these songs are yours to keep after the subscription ends. They're in DRM-free MP3 format, meaning that you don't have to hassle with any annoying restrictions (here they've even got the iTunes Store beat).
eMusic offers you three subscription plans, which compare to iTunes as follows:
| Plan | Number of songs you can download to own per month | Cost | Cost per song |
|---|---|---|---|
| eMusic Basic | 30 | $9.99 | $0.33 |
| eMusic Plus | 50 | $14.99 | $0.30 |
| eMusic Premium | 75 | $19.99 | $0.27 |
| iTunes Store | n/a | n/a | $0.99 |
Probably the biggest drawback is the smaller selection than the iTunes Store. It seems that few major music stars are to be found, although I had little trouble digging up the ancient Bing Crosby Christmas album I was looking for. Some other big names include Ya Lo Tengo and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Clearly you can see that mainstream artists haven't ventured here yet.
However, for those classical fans out there, this site seems to be geared towards you, with classical music search options featuring right in the search mechanism of the website.
I would suggest a few improvements. By far, the most important drawback of eMusic is its lack of integration with iTunes. eMusic doesn't provide you with a jukebox program (and thankfully so, since there's very little chance that they'd be able to pull off anything as good as iTunes). When you download a song from eMusic, it's just plopped down somewhere on your hard drive and you have to put it into iTunes yourself. Back when I frequented Limewire I remember that it used to put songs right into iTunes in a new play list, something that would be particularly suitable for eMusic as well. But I would take it a step farther, by making eMusic's default file naming conventions the same as iTunes. To take it a step further, eMusic should make sure all the MP3 tags are the same as those in iTunes songs and, as a kicker, automatically download album artwork (which is not included in your eMusic download).
Overall, I'm sold. There's enough good stuff in here to keep a music lover happy, and, thank goodness, it's all DRM free. While it's certainly not going to replace the iTunes Store, it certainly is a nice supplement that has many of the songs that are on the iTunes Store.
Relatedly, here are ten good reasons why a content provider would choose to avoid using DRM and here is a list of DRM-free-content providers.
posted by Vincent at 2:40 AM
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