Much as I like Amazon MP3, it only sells to US customers. Bummer.
I am not sure about I-Tunes. I want a MP3 file that I can put into my Creative MP3 player and I don’t wish to use I-Tunes as my player.
What others are there?
Depends on where you are. I don’t think there are any that are truly international.
Napster?
Try play.com.
If you’re outside the UK, make sure you pick EUR as your currency. I’ve never used the site for mp3 purchases, only for CDs, books and DVDs. I’ve been using them for many years now and never had a problem with them.
Again, I haven’t used the mp3 purchase section, but if my experience with them is an indication, then you shouldn’t have any problems.
Oh, I am from Singapore.
I believe iTune sells to Singapore; I just need more info on it as I don’t use Apple software much.
And both of questionable legality, with possible ties to Russian mobsters. Any music selling URL ending in .ru is automatically suspect.
Er, cite? You’re saying that the entire Russian economy is linked to organised crime? I’m not saying you’re necessarily wrong, just would like some evidence beyond “it ends in .ru - it must be evil”.
No, just that any Russian-based site that sells music for download is likely linked to mobsters. This all stemmed from investigations into allofmp3, which has since been closed under pressure from Moscow.
I had a cite that alleged ties between Russian music download sites and organized crime when I did some checking into allofmp3 three years ago but can’t find it now.
The trouble with the Russian download sites is that most of them are so damn good. They offer non-DRM files in the quality that you want. They are (well, most of them) easy to navigate; they have a very eclectic range of music; you can listen to complete tracks (albeit in very low quality): I find that listening to just the first 30 seconds can be very misleading. The prices are ridiculously cheap - and there’s the problem: how can anything that cheap be legal?
The answer is no, the itunes music store doesn’t operate in Singapore. The app store does, however. And yes, I am just as annoyed with you about this little fucknuggetry of international licencing agreements.
The Internet really brings across how artificial all these licencing agreements are - there isn’t any technical limitation to selling me stuff, and the rights holders in other countries are already selling THEIR people stuff, but they can’t sell to me simply because the rights holder in my territory doesn’t want to get off his fat ass and say “why yes, I do suppose I would like to have some of tabby’s money now”.