rickshangle.com

Although I’m sometimes flambasted as an Apple fanboy, when I became aware of iTMS-competetor music download site eMusic, I had to give it a shot.

I first signed up for the 14-day trial, then after sniffing around decided, what the hey, I’ll go for the discounted $100 12-month subscription. In iTMS terms, I’ll need to download about ten albums to break even.

###The eMusic model:

1. you pay X dollars a month (the plans are $10, $15 and $20)…
2. … to download Y songs a month (mapping to 40, uh (I’m trying to find the T+C, now that I’m a member)… maybe 60, and 80 songs, respectively?)
3. The songs are in MP3 to do what you wish.

Why, one might ask, did I try out eMusic considered i’m an iTMS users but not a Napster user?

My friend Mike told me about an eMusic commercial featuring a 1/10th of a second clip of Bob Pollard, so that pretty much made it worth checking out.

So… based on that model… I have 480 songs to download over the next year… and I’m basically paying $0.21 a song, compared to $0.99 per song or a little less (if it’s part of a standard-priced $9.99 album, and has more than ten songs) on iTMS.

###The pros (after 10 minutes of user-dom):

1. MP3 @ 240kbit VBR means relatively good quality without DRM issues
2. 1,000,000+ songs, 3,000+ (can this be?) labels. A lot of indie content.
3. User reviews, message boards, “neighbors” (listing of people with similar interests), etc.
4. It’s MP3 so I can use it in any player… but I’ll (shocker) continue to use iTunes
5. This may be my ignorance talking, but the fact that there’s no DRM means that although eMusic can change their T+C for music I have yet to download, they can’t do anything for the music I already have downloaded.
6. Lots of indie content.

One might think, “ok, how is this different from iTunes?” Remember that iTMS’s FairPlay-DRM’ed content is always being cross-checked back to the mother ship. If Apple decides to change their use policies (which I doubt they’d do for already-purchased content, unless they’re willing to weather a major user backlash), that means they have control over determining if / how / in what way you can continue to use the stuff you bought.

###The cons:

1. (Puzzling) No album artwork included, although it takes two seconds to get that from Amazon or a dozen other locations
2. Uses a seperate app to download - you browse on the web, then when you click “buy” it kicks over to the other download manager app to seal the deal. It works, it’s fast. I haven’t found a downside it in yet… but it’s not a clean as iTMS/iTunes.
3. I’ll post more as I find them.
4. “Lots of indie content” is a bit of an understatement - almost entirely indie content and, well, sub-indie. You won’t find most big bands here, so I won’t be using this to replace iTMS. However (a pro), you will find tons of good stuff that you’ll probably never see on iTMS.

rds

St. Bob wants you to watch him jumpstart. also, his bands and other indie rockers can be found at eMusic.