Whither iTunes, I do not

I stopped buying music from iTunes about six months ago. The release and mandatory upgrade to version six of the program included new and more-difficult-to-hack DRM. No thank you. If iTunes insists on controlling the rights to products I purchase and use legally, then iTunes will no longer receive my business.

I’ve found a better option anyway.

Allofmp3 is a Russian website that, products being cheaper in Russia, sells complete albums for generally less than $2 and individual songs for as little as pennies. It’s completely legal and legitimate. The record companies don’t like it when Americans use it, but there’s plenty of things the record companies do that I don’t like, so at worse that makes us even. Globalization is a two-way street, corporate America.

It’s a little different than iTunes, though. It works like debit. You pay into the system ($10 seems to be the minimum) and then deduct, rather than paying strictly as you go. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of iTunes, nor does it have as large a music library. But for twelve cents a song who cares?

So far I’ve downloaded one album and it’s worked like gangbusters. I’ll still use iTunes to manage my library; I’m not about to give up my iPod, after all. But Apple’s days of getting my money for music are over.

Tags: lifestyle technology entertainment