What the death of iTunes says about digital habits

Re:What the death of iTunes says about digital habits by Macha on Saturday January 18, 2020 @06:36PM (#22088177)

While the iTunes client has been something I've directed much dislike to over the years, the iTunes store feels like the last place I can get mainstream music DRM free to just play on any of my devices and keep regardless of what licensing deals change. While Spotify is great for access to music, the client is very poor for library/playlist management, and some music I'd just like to have my own copy of. If the store ever shuts down in favour of Apple Music subscriptions only, it feels like I'd have to go back to buying CDs.

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Re:What the death of iTunes says about digital habits by scarface74 on Saturday January 18, 2020 @08:15PM (#22088658)

You can get DRM free digital music from Amazon.

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Re:What the death of iTunes says about digital habits by Macha on Saturday January 18, 2020 @09:27PM (#22088946)

I'll have to check if it's available in my country, most of their options to buy digital content are not.

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Re:What the death of iTunes says about digital habits by Macha on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @03:28PM (#22121651)

As an update: It is not. It looks available, but attempting to pay for something prompts me to enter a US/UK/DE payment method depending on which site I use.

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Re:What the death of iTunes says about digital habits by cpach on Sunday January 19, 2020 @03:46AM (#22090244)

Do they offer lossless files? E.g. FLAC.

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Re:What the death of iTunes says about digital habits by scarface74 on Sunday January 19, 2020 @10:00AM (#22091743)

No - 256kbps AAC

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Re:What the death of iTunes says about digital habits by thirdsun on Friday January 24, 2020 @06:06AM (#22137073)

> ...the iTunes store feels like the last place I can get mainstream music DRM free to just play on any of my devices...

The question about DRM-free, lossless music sources comes up again and again, but personally I think it has never been easier to purchase digital, lossless, DRM-free music from countless stores. My favorites include:

- Bandcamp

- Boomkat

- Qobuz (particularly useful for mainstream music)

- Bleep

- 7Digital

- Juno Download

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Re:What the death of iTunes says about digital habits by Macha on Sunday January 26, 2020 @06:00PM (#22155463)

Bandcamp: No mainstream music. While I have plenty of music there, but sometimes I just want to buy the Gorillaz

Boomkat: See above, except I've not personally used it. Also downloads seem to be a one time thing, sounds like you need to ask support for a limited number of redownloads?

Bleep: Limited selection, but has at least some

7Digital, Qobuz: Actually pretty ok, I'll have to check them out in the future.

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Re:What the death of iTunes says about digital habits by thirdsun on Thursday January 30, 2020 @09:34AM (#22191509)

Qobuz has lots of popular music from major labels (including Gorillaz). I'm not sure how much more mainstream it can get, but if something you're looking for is missing, I'd say that's a failure and neglect the labels involved should be blamed for. Do you have an example of a release you can't find as lossless download (excluding obviously rare material)?

> Boomkat: See above, except I've not personally used it. Also downloads seem to be a one time thing, sounds like you need to ask support for a limited number of redownloads?

How many redownloads do you think you need? All your purchased releases stay with your account, ready to be downloaded at any time again and while I had to re-download some of them repeatedly due to network errors on my end I never ran into any download limits. Should be a non-issue.

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Re:What the death of iTunes says about digital habits by hbk on Sunday January 19, 2020 @05:01AM (#22090508)

Just buy the albums from bandcamp.com

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Re:What the death of iTunes says about digital habits by tgv on Sunday January 19, 2020 @04:36AM (#22090423)

For classical and jazz, there's e.g. prestomusic.com

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