This year I actually spent over half an hour searching for a legal way to stream a certain series in my preferred language. Which quickly turned out to be quite a task because some streaming sites don't show non-registered visitors more than a login screen, others don't show any language options or information, and the remaining ones refuse service to my region or don't have the content in their selection, at least at that moment. Trying to find out if the search will be successful feels like trying to solve the halting problem while illegal sources offer DRM-free downloads with a single click on the first link in the search results. The disparity is stunning.

You sure? Up to the platform, but generally it is not the case I think. I mean sure, I paid and downloaded albums from Bandcamp before, but I use YouTube the most for music. I do not use Spotify, or Apple Music. No idea if you can download songs from those platforms. I do use SoundCloud and YouTube. I must use youtube-dl to download music from those two places. SoundCloud gives the uploader the ability to allow the downloading of the uploaded song, but in many cases it is not allowed, so youtube-dl it is. Then you can also find torrents and download your favourite bands' music in FLAC format.

youtube-dl is amazing. It supports a lot of platforms, and you can download entire playlists by just using the URL to the playlist itself.

YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify, and Apple Music are all streaming services, not places to buy music. However, you can buy digital music from Amazon, the iTunes Store, Bandcamp, and other places that give you DRM free audio files. I personally think this is a fair trade off because when you pay for a streaming service you are just renting access to their library while if you really want the music for keeps you can simply purchase the music.

The iTunes Store still exists and has a decent selection as does Amazon Music MP3 downloads, not to mention a bunch of smaller players like Qobuz that have FLAC and other audiophile formats. If you want to buy legally and download, it’s still possible for like 90% of the artists and genres I care about.

Ah, cheers!