I have discovered that Amazon has a nice choice of Renaissance music in their new mp3 download store, and, unlike iTunes, it is DRM (digital rights management) free. This means you can place it on any device you wish, or more importantly, burn it to CD without restriction. This is a step very much in the right direction. It is difficult to understand why we should purchase (at a high enough price to boot) music and then have our hands tied as to the use we make of it. I am very much of the DRM is evil camp.
What I like about the Amazon approach is that it is truly simple to use. The first time you purchase something, simply install the little mp3 downloader program (you need this to download albums, but not individual tracks, because it manages queues of downloadable tracks). After track(s) or album is downloaded, the program will also automatically add it to your iTunes or Windows media music library. It really couldn't be easier. Because the tracks are in mp3 format, they will play on virtually any device, and can be burned to CD using any standard software. You probably use iTunes or the WMP to do this anyway.
What about price? Most tracks are priced at 89 cents, some are .99. Most albums are priced at $8.99, some were 7.99. Double albums (like the Globe album below) are more. Amazon says they go as low as 4.99, but I did not find any that low that I wanted to download. All tracks are encoded at 256kbps (kilobits per second--a bitrate that allows for a very high sampling rate, and therefore very high fidelity to analog sound). Since 192kbps is CD quality, there are no issues with sub-standard sounding music. It all sounds great, though your experience will be more dependent on your playback system than the tracks themselves.
I have been downloading music, and "ripping" my own CDs, for years, but I have never downloaded DRM'd music and am not about to start now. I'm glad Amazon has made the decision to support DRM-free music. It makes me much more comfortable purchasing from them.
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