This is pretty cool. Amazon.com now sells unencrypted MP3 files. The usual disclaimer applies; you’re not going to find every popular artist you want, but I found a decent selection. I bought The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will The Circle Be Unbroken Vol 2 for $7.97.
I think you can download individual songs without any extra plugins/softwre, but to download entire albums you need to download an Amazon downloader app. You tell it where you want your music (default location is My Documents, My Music, Amazon MP3) and you can tell it whether or not to automatically import the songs to Windows Media Player or iTunes. I didn’t really like the idea of installing an app, but unless they send you a ZIP file with all the songs or something I guess this is the next best thing. Most users will probably find it useful.
The album I downloaded was encoded at 256KB, and of course sounds great. I’ve read that the songs are/can be watermarked, so don’t put them on BitTorrent or whatever… All in all I’m much more likely to buy music this way than on CD.
Is this “downloader” application also available for Macs?
I’d be a little wary of using that. I’d want to be sure it doesn’t have any form of spyware or anything.
Are the files watermarked? I’ve heard of a possible alternative to DRM, where they encode your name or an ID into the files somehow, in a way that’s inaudible. That way, if you go and share with a bunch of people, they can identify it as your copy.
This service can be dangerous with one-click: Look at this Smashing Pumpkins Rarities and B-Sides collection, it costs $103!! Not sure what would happen if you bought it but didn’t download, hopefully you’d get your money back.