I purchased a download track yesterday. One song. First time I ever tried this and it was such an unsatisfactory experience that I can't imagine going through that again anytime soon.
I wanted to buy a song. I didn't want any software installed on my PC (that rules out iTunes - God I hate that program - and many others I checked). I didn't want to subscribe to any service, just buy a song. One song.
I thought I'd found the answer with HMV.co.uk (they had the song I wanted too). Wrong.
First of all, the format is WMA and not MP3, which I wanted. This wasn't made clear to me until AFTER they'd taken my money. (I know it was only 79p - $1.57 - but still.) The bitrate is a pathetic 128kbps. Then there's DRM nonsense that I have to put up with.
I have my music on a hard drive connected to my pc and I sometimes like to play music off the hard drive using my laptop via the WiFi connection. Well, not with the DRM protections on this downloaded song. And, on top of that, I had to let them install a little program in my browser (IE, not Firefox, another grumble) in order to download the one song. Errrrr.
So, I'll stick with CD's. You can buy them online and even with shipping they're not really any more than a downloaded album. And, you can rip them and play them without all this copyright protection.
{Look, I know why the record companies do this, but really it's not great business to treat your customers like criminals. In fact, it's pretty annoying.}
