This could go in the Pit but I am also looking for some suggestions so I wanted to put it here where more people would see it.
I stored my music on an External HD. It was a left over from the fact that most of my collection came from my old PC which had a much smaller HD. And as I am sure you guessed this HD failed on me suddenly. I have not given up hope of recovering the data on it but it doesn’t look good.
I buy most of my MP3s off Amazon. I don’t use their cloud player because I like my MP3 player so I would download the files to my PC and store them on the external drive. Ironically I had been backing up the external on my new PC’s regular HD (not so new I guess but much much bigger than my previous PC’s drive) but I hadn’t done this in almost a year. The end result is there about two dozen MPs I bought but now have lost. I assumed I could go into my orders and redownload them but as I searched, I could find no way of doing this. A half hour on the phone with their tech support was useless. They basically told me they couldn’t see anyway to do it but were very perplexed by the mere suggestion.
I can’t believe I am the first person who called them with this question but they transferred me three times because apparently no one had and it looks like my only recourse is to pay them again. So,
Please everyone back up all your stuff right now and don’t be an idiot like me.
If I had stolen all this music I would already have fresh new copies of all my songs which is stupid.
Does anyone know if there is a way to redownload a song you purchased from Amazon? If you do, thank you, also you should work for them because their own employees were stumped by this seemingly simple question.
Have you tried (I’m sure you have) going into “Your Account”–>“Your Cloud Player”? Once you get to that screen on the left should have all of your purchased songs. From there you should be able to download them.
When you say “mostly” how many songs are you talking aout? Looks like the Cloud player holds about 900 of the most recent songs.
[ul]
[li]Go to “Hello Quimby, Your account.” Pick “Your Cloud Player” from the drop-down menu.[/li][li]Then in the left-hand column go to “purchased.” Scroll through and find your songs. [/li][li]Delete the free mp3s you downloaded and it automatically added to the player for no damn good reason.[/li][/ul]
I was under the impression that if you went to the cloud player you could see all of the music that you bought from Amazon. (Including some CDs that are a part of the AutoRip plan). But, if it were that easy I have to assume tech support would have told you about it. In any case it’s worth a try.
Actually, I read your whole post and came to the same conclusion.
And you stated that you don’t use the cloud player which seemed to imply that your music was not ther. (Even though Amazon puts it there by default)
So it appearered as if you somehow opted out of Amazon’s free backup service and your point #2 stated that stolen music would somehow have been backed up.
Not sure why you needed to snark at somebody who restated your original statements.
I have to admit, that confused me too. I have bought music previously via Amazon so I know I have music available via their Cloud service, and from the phrasing of the OP, I assumed that he had somehow disabled it/opted out of it, or had already checked and found that it wasn’t there.
I didn’t get the stolen music thing, either. I assumed it was supposed to mean “if I was a lousy thief I’d have already re-downloaded all that” but yeah, it wasn’t clear.
I thought I was pretty clear. I admitted I messed up by not backing up as often as I should. I never blamed Amazon for losing my music. My complaint was Amazon couldn’t tell me how to redownload the songs I legally paid for. I didn’t think to check their cloud player for a download option and clearly neither did their own tech support because none of the three people I spoke to suggested that (again much thanks for pointing me in that direction).
My point about the pirating was had I used those means to get the songs, going back to that well and getting them again would have been easier and less aggravating.
I don’t know why you think you should be allowed to re-download songs if you lost them. If you’d bought a CD and lost it, you couldn’t go back to the store with your receipt and get it replaced. It’s the same with downloads. They’re basically purchased as a single-use commodity, just like physical media. Having said that, at least they do have the cloud option, which benefits you.
Obviously it’s not since the OP was able to re-download them. A digital media retailer doesn’t have a dozen MP3s on a shelf somewhere, with each one given out as a replacement reducing the number that can be sold for profit.
This is the flip-side of the “It’s not stealing!” argument: if you don’t buy something physical, but rather a license to something, it shouldn’t be possible to lose it. You are most certainly not free to do anything you want with your download, like you would with a CD; you are only buying the right to play it. Since there is no (measurable) cost to you downloading it again, doing that should be (and nowadays is) part of your license.
The vague distinction among licenses is why I don’t understand iTunes and Amazon MP3s. Except for the vanishingly small number of tracks unavailable on Rhapsody or similar services, subscribing to unlimited play (and storing tracks for playing offline) seems so much more rational. The $120 a year is absolutely dwarfed by the number of individual songs that are replayed several times over, let alone the absurd variety of music downloaded/listened to. I just don’t understand.
On preview: I don’t mean this to sound like a threadshit hur hur, stoopid Quimby should have x, I mean I really don’t understand the economics of it.
The difference is the tracks you download on Rhapsody’s unlimited subscription plan are WMAs with copy protection and you need to burn them to CD and convert them if you want to use them as mp3s. *
I realize you can buy mp3 tracks and albums from Rhapsody just as you can from Amazon and itunes without restrictions, but the $10 a month unlimited downloads do carry DRM restrictions with them.
This also why I don’t use iTunes. Even though the tracks are DRM free, they are downloaded as AAC files, which I then need to convert as I really do prefer mp3s.
In 1992 or so, when I was selling electronics, I would take about 50 CDs with me back and forth to work every day so I could have a variety of musical styles available to play for stereo buyers. One day I lost them on the bus. Should Tower Records have replaced them all for me?
That’s not exactly analogous. Amazon did exactly what Quimby expected them to do. He just wasn’t exactly sure how to do it and their tech support was of no help. But since Amazon stores all of your purchases in the cloud (including music on CDs you buy from them), and allows you to download them without limit, then Quimby’s expectation was quite reasonable. This isn’t 1992 anymore and there were no digital downloads then.