After a decade of fighting the inevitable, music companies are finally allowing DRM-free purchase of music. Amazon, Rhapsody, and yes even Walmart are the big players. iTunes has a few select tracks, but the vast majority of their music still has copy protection, so I can't recommend it.Amazon MP3 has the best selection, best prices, best customer service, and is the easiest to use. The songs sound great encoded at 256kps, and they all include full meta-data and album art. MP3s have many advantages over CDs: instant gratification, only buying the songs you want, and it's better for the environment. They do require a special Downloader application when buying multiple songs, but I found this makes the purchase experience extremely easy.
Rhapsody launched their service last week to great fanfare, but as I discovered first hand, it comes up short. I cannot recommend nor even use Walmart, as they support neither Firefox nor the Mac.
As is typical of all MP3 stores, you cannot download a purchased song more than once. Thus, I highly recommend that you back up your music immediately after purchasing it. There are online storage sites like Microsoft's SkyDrive which are perfect for this.
If you are looking for some music that isn't part of the MP3 store yet, you can always fall back on buying a CD. Amazon has an amazing selection, and you can often find really good deals in the used & new section. In some cases, you can buy a used CD for 1ยข plus $2.98 shipping.
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