Where Do You Get Your Music From?

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9865390-1.html' target='_blank'>http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9865390-1.html</a><br /><br /></div>Over on the <a target="_blank" href="http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9865390-1.html">Crave site</a>, they asked an interesting question: where do you buy your music from? They listed a bunch of options, but here's my cobbled-together list:<br /><ul> <li>Buying new CDs and ripping them</li> <li>Buying used CDs and ripping them</li> <li>Buying music from an online store (Zune Marketplace, iTunes, Amazon.com, etc.)<br /> </li> <li>Paying for a music subscription (Zune Pass, Napster, Rhapsody, etc.)</li></ul>If you buy digital tracks, which do you do more of - purchase individual tracks (like the singles) or do you tend to buy the whole album? <br /><br />You'll notice I asked where you BUY your music from - once I get anonymous poll functionality on this site, I'll ask the question about where you GET your music from and all you P2P peeps can crawl out and vote. ;-)

[stevew]

When I was using WM I was ripping CD's. Lately I've been using an iPhone and iTunes.

[Stinger]

New CDs, ripped to my PC. Usually I buy my CDs online from Play.com (www.play.com).

[FiredCylinder]

Up until very recently, I bought CDs and ripped them. Now I get em from Amazon.com.

[Rocco Augusto]

Up until a year or two ago I was buying the CD and then ripping it into MP3 as well as FLAC (lossless). Lately though all of the artist and musicians I listen to have had digital downloads of their music at pretty acceptable qualities so I have just been buying directly from them and skipping the whole middle man completely :)

[Neil Enns]

I recently got a 3-month ZunePass for free, so that's where all the new music is coming from. I've found a couple of really good albums that I then went out and purchased in real, CD form, so it's DRM free (Kylie's new album ROCKS!).

Neil

[mrozema]

Buy and rip CDs, purchase from Zune Marketplace, purchase from eMusic.com and download authorized live recordings.

[Jason Dunn]

Since I asked the question, I guess I should answer it as well...

In order of frequency, how I get my music:

1) Buy new CDs (95% of my new music comes from CDs)
2) Digital downloads from Zune Marketplace (though I *hate* the DRM on them) and some from Amazon.com, though they closed the loophole so I can't buy them any more
3) Buy the occasional used CD

I had a Napster music subscription for a while, but I gave that up. When Zune pass is in Canada, I'll probably give it a try.

[Dyvim]

I'd say well over 90% of my music comes from CD's I had already purchased before going digital, just ripping my existing music collection (been buying CD's since 1985). Honestly, in the last 4 years since going digital I haven't been acquiring that much new music. Of new music, I'd still say that 90% is ripped from CD and 10% are digital downloads (mostly singles) from either iTunes or Amazon. Basically if I want the whole album I buy the CD, if I want just 1 track I do a download. My download store preferences run like this:

1. if it's available in iTunes Plus format (DRM-free 256kbps AAC) I get it from the iTunes Store.
2. otherwise if it's available on Amazon.com (as DRM-free 256kbps MP3) I get it there.
3. Only if 1&2 are not an option will I consider a DRM-ed "iTunes Minus" (my term) 128kbps AAC track from the iTunes Store. I may or may not have liberated said purchases using QTFairUse6 (which doesn't work with iTunes 7.6 btw)

I've also tried the Wal-Mart store (too many tracks available only in WMA which I don't do due to my investment in iPods, and too much censoring of explicit lyrics), 7digital (320kbps DRM-free MP3 with albums from Radiohead which at the time weren't available for download elsewhere although now they're on iTunes), and even lossless .flac downloads direct from artist's websites (Coil). Lossless .flac downloads of course remove my need for the physical CD and in the case of Coil, the CDs can be almost impossible to find anyway.

Just this week I toyed around with buying tracks on my iPhone. While this was strictly W?BIC, it was pretty neat. My wife was singing some 90's Brazilian tune to our son and I decided to whip out my iPhone and try to find it on the iTunes store. The search was quick and found the track right away, I played a 30-second sample to confirm it really was the correct track, the purchase only required me to enter my iTunes account password, and the download took less than a minute and soon I was playing the track over the iPhone's tinny little external speaker to my son's delight. Next time I synced my iPhone, the new track synced up to my desktop where I was then able to sync it down to our household's other iPods.

[TopDog]

Most of the time I buy CD's and rip them... but as more and more downloadable music is available DRM-free, I often buy music from iTunes Store, CDON.com and MusikkOnline.no (a Norwegian 100% DRM free music store).

I don't remember last time i used P2P to get music... long live DRM-free music :)

[Jason Dunn]

Just this week I toyed around with buying tracks on my iPhone. While this was strictly W?BIC, it was pretty neat...

That's a really great real-world scenario! Thanks for sharing it.

[WyattEarp]

I purchase CDs and rip them myself. I don't like the quality/pricepoint of digital downloads when I can have a DRM free and non-compressed copy of the same music for the same price.

[andre]

i am done buying new CD unless its has 5+ good tracks

~ used CDs (local stores, amazon, ebay)
~ digital music from eMusic/amazon.com

[faztang]

I first check Amazon.com. .89 cents and no DRM, you can't go wrong.
Their library is still not that large so if they don't have it I usually go over to Napster. I probably will never buy a song from Zune Marketplace since their pricing system is so wacky.

[Nikey]

Sometimes I buy from Amazon, but mostly i rip CDs or my friends share with me:)