If I want a song...
I Amazon it. Okay, it's MP3 but it is a respectable 256kbit. This might not be acceptable to those who use gold-plated audio leads into a serious amp... but I'm a child of the tape era listening to the song on my Zen. It is good enough for me.
What I'd like - slightly cheaper. I mean, 99c/song is not expensive, but if you pick'n'mix a CD's worth of songs (say, 10-12), it would cost more than a CD. Perhaps they could offer a reduction based upon units of 5? Just a thought...
I specifically like Amazon, and don't touch iTunes with a bargepole, as I am handing over my credit card details in return for a DRM-free MP3. My browser is good enough for the bank, it is good enough for Amazon (purchasing singley), it ought to be good enough for iTunes. Understand this, I am NOT a big music purchaser, I do _NOT_ want to waste my precious disc space (it's an eeePC so I don't have silly capacity for filling up with stuff like that) on some software to help me download music. I don't NEED help. Take my money and provide a link, anything else is just faffing around...
Furthermore, please _PLEASE_ sort out the cross-country licencing balls. The different Amazons list different MP3s. However, can I buy a track from the UK that isn't listed in French Amazon? Absolutely not. Yet, when I contacted Amazon US to ask about a DVD only listed there and if I could order it through my own Amazon, they said why, just set up an account with us and order direct. The two seem to be inconsistent to me. And, if I may have my 2c worth, idiocy like this is what is likely to cause people to look for less than legal downloading. I mean, do you think I *care* about what licencing issues the recording companies have? Sony, Universal, blah-de-blah, they're international giants right? So explain why we're still stuck with region-specific lists of music?
Maybe the government would be much better wasting taxpayers money encouraging the media companies to set up something like www.music.com (maybe that's taken, whatever...) in which all of the rightsholders list all of their music along with the price-per-track, and a raw WAV option for the audiophiles. No pay-per-bitrate, no annoying adverts, just a listing of pretty much everything that they have to offer (with the only region-specific difference being the currency displayed) which takes your cash and returns a list of links to personalised downloads. No requirement for specific software. Just a big global easy-to-use music site.
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BTW, in reply to the suggestion of "why many people know a site for downloading music illegally"... would anybody need to? Surely it would suffice to just use a search engine? Visit our favourite search and type in "uk top 40" and wait a mo. You'll see it, fifth suggestion down - "uk top 40 torrent"...