Not quite true anymore, publishers have pretty much given up on DRM for purchased music :)
Neither Apple’s iTunes store nor amazon’s store (although to be fair, I haven’t used amazon, so I’m not 100 % sure about them) use DRM on purchased music, so you can just take the music files and use them in any way you want.
In my personal opinion though, rather than use the iTunes store or amazon, I’d recommend you to try the qobuz store, which is DRM-free and is the only one I know of (ignoring bandcamp, which doesn’t get music from regular distributors) that provides lossless audio.
This led to a lot of good discussion around various places to buy digital music. My comment wasn’t so much drm focused as it was about licenses being removed. I’ve encountered that on Qobuz actually. Not many, but a few items are no longer available to be downloaded. I have already downloaded the files when I purchased the music, so that’s certainly something different than a movie or game that can’t be downloaded and used as such. That’s all, just the fact that the license can still be removed.
But yeah, that’s definitely a problem. I remember them sending the email where they announced this could happen now (although weirdly enough, they never sent an email for when purchased items were taken down any time after that again), and had it happen a few times as well. Luckily, I’ve also saved everything locally, so I haven’t lost anything. Still annoying. Also sometimes, an album that’s suddenly gone just seems to reappear a few months later, as if they were just reorganizing their library, but really, I have no idea what’s going on.
HDtracs also sells some stuff losslessly. Though one thing I’ve noticed I’ve noticed on both Qobuz and HDtracs is tha, in addition to only having some stuff losslessly, the availability of lossless varies by region. The same album might be sold lossless in one region and only lossy in another region.
Didn’t know about them before, thanks for sharing!
The same album might be sold lossless in one region and only lossy in another region.
That’s weird, since as far as I can tell, qobuz doesn’t offer lossy downloads at all (I’ve heard they used to, but stopped. Maybe there are some regions where they’re still offering it?)
Hmm, maybe I was misremembering. On second thought I think it was actually 7digital I was thinking of that did the regional lossless, I forgot about that one. For example, the same album on Swedish and American stores:
MP3 is a horrible non-free (well, not anymore, because the patents expired; but still), outdated format. bandcamp also lets you download as FLAC, which is none of that and lossless.
edit: it feels this comment came off a bit aggressively, so I just wanted to say that wasn’t my intention 😅
Not quite true anymore, publishers have pretty much given up on DRM for purchased music :)
Neither Apple’s iTunes store nor amazon’s store (although to be fair, I haven’t used amazon, so I’m not 100 % sure about them) use DRM on purchased music, so you can just take the music files and use them in any way you want. In my personal opinion though, rather than use the iTunes store or amazon, I’d recommend you to try the qobuz store, which is DRM-free and is the only one I know of (ignoring bandcamp, which doesn’t get music from regular distributors) that provides lossless audio.
This led to a lot of good discussion around various places to buy digital music. My comment wasn’t so much drm focused as it was about licenses being removed. I’ve encountered that on Qobuz actually. Not many, but a few items are no longer available to be downloaded. I have already downloaded the files when I purchased the music, so that’s certainly something different than a movie or game that can’t be downloaded and used as such. That’s all, just the fact that the license can still be removed.
Ah, didn’t expect you to already know qobuz 🙃
But yeah, that’s definitely a problem. I remember them sending the email where they announced this could happen now (although weirdly enough, they never sent an email for when purchased items were taken down any time after that again), and had it happen a few times as well. Luckily, I’ve also saved everything locally, so I haven’t lost anything. Still annoying. Also sometimes, an album that’s suddenly gone just seems to reappear a few months later, as if they were just reorganizing their library, but really, I have no idea what’s going on.
That’s good to hear some items have returned. I also wonder about things like relistings, if items have or will get moved around. Good discussion!
HDtracs also sells some stuff losslessly. Though one thing I’ve noticed I’ve noticed on both Qobuz and HDtracs is tha, in addition to only having some stuff losslessly, the availability of lossless varies by region. The same album might be sold lossless in one region and only lossy in another region.
Didn’t know about them before, thanks for sharing!
That’s weird, since as far as I can tell, qobuz doesn’t offer lossy downloads at all (I’ve heard they used to, but stopped. Maybe there are some regions where they’re still offering it?)
Hmm, maybe I was misremembering. On second thought I think it was actually 7digital I was thinking of that did the regional lossless, I forgot about that one. For example, the same album on Swedish and American stores:
https://se.7digital.com/artist/taylor-swift/release/the-life-of-a-showgirl-explicit-60581637?f=20%2C19%2C12%2C16%2C17%2C9%2C2
https://us.7digital.com/artist/taylor-swift/release/the-life-of-a-showgirl-explicit-60581637?f=20%2C19%2C12%2C16%2C17%2C9%2C2
Bandcamp lets you download .mp3 which are DRM free. They probably are tagged in the info but its just a text field
MP3 is a horrible non-free (well, not anymore, because the patents expired; but still), outdated format. bandcamp also lets you download as FLAC, which is none of that and lossless.
edit: it feels this comment came off a bit aggressively, so I just wanted to say that wasn’t my intention 😅
FLAC does not work with alot of devices
AAC-LC though works just about anywhere, and AFAIK is also patent free by now.
Then transcode it to whatever other format you need yourself. Point is, the thing being sold ought to be the highest quality possible.