I took my MP3 player to work and loaded the songs onto my work computer. My internet connection has been so wacky, I finally gave up on streaming music. So I decided to just listen to the stuff I have in Windows Media Player. Well, the first song I come to says it has to download some component before I listen to it. So I do, then I get a message that I have to download Napster to listen to it. That's BS! I don't think I'll download songs from Napster anymore if they're going to do that.
Okay, I've changed my tune. I couldn't shuffle properly because of the whole Napster track thing, so I downloaded it. Now I can download all the songs that I purchased at home onto up to 3 computers! So now I have all my purchased songs at work and home.
I'm still leery of this though. What happens if someone gives me a mix DVD with a Napster song on it? What happens the next time I put a song on my MP3 player? Does that count as a computer?
I have a Rhapsody account that I use for that. The free Rhapsody account comes with 25 free listens/month.
If I need one song (like to practice bass with) and don't really care that its not "CD quality", I turn on the "wave out" recorder in Audacity and play the song in Rhapsody. I then turn that recording into an mp3.
If I have one version on CD and one that I recorded . . . turn them both on . . . listen with headphones and A/B them, there is an obvious difference. Not a huge difference, but the CD does sound "fuller".
If I just walked into a room and you had one playing, I probably couldn't tell if it was a CD or recording.
That is exactly the problem that these goof balls don't seem to understand.
This DRM stuff is not stopping the people that are are going to pirate the music. All it does is inconvenience the honest people and in many cases push them to the point of where they will resort to pirating to avoid the problems.
Honestly guys, the best way to go with buying music is to buy it from iTunes and then burn it to a CD.
Once you have it burned onto a CD you can rip it back into your computer as a completely free-to-use MP3, no restrictions.
If you're worried about wasting CD's just use a rewritable one.
Now iTunes is charging an extra 30 cents for a DRM free track, but there's no need to buy it because it's so simple to just burn it and then rip it as an MP3. You can even use the iTunes software to rip it back as an unrestricted MP3.
