This is never gonna happen. Record companies are reluctant to innovate and pretty much wanna keep sucking us dry. And with the money they have for lobbying they will be able to do that long after we are dead. Don't feel bad to download music. I will probably get flamed for this, don't care. The music business needs a revolution, and till they see that we are on the losing end.

My post seems to have been eaten by the forum pigeons, so I'll paste it from my cache.  My apologies if this turns out to be a double post...

Oddly, I've been looking into downloading music lately as well.  Albeit for different reasons.  I don't illegally download. 

I have, however, tired of having to go through CDs and DVDs at the store only to find that what I'm looking for isn't available, has been sold out or is misplaced somehow.  That or buying one online and having a scratched item arrive weeks after I was expecting it.  CDs and DVDs are also bulky and slow.  It takes some effort to rip everything to my MP3 players so I can have my music with me.

Looking through the online maze, it's not easy to swim through all of the offerings and find a service that fits.  So many are offering free MP3s, but the value vs. cost is about right for those.  Some appear to want to bundle trojan DRM within the downloads.  Nice.

I'm leaning heavily toward Napster.  Evidently, at $5.00 per month, you get 5 downloads and can buy more along the way. That might put the price at a slight premium, since most of the songs I want go for less than $1.00. On the other hand, they include "unlimited" streaming so you can try before you buy.

That's in theory though.  I haven't tried them so I can't say that they'll deliver what they promise.  Time will tell before long, though.

Perhaps someone who's familiar with Napster can chime in?

Edit - Napster claims to now be DRM free.  This is evidently after having dealt with DRM and finally rejecting it.  Anyone with experience care to comment?

Pandora's a nice one, if you're not looking for specific songs and just want to hear something good. The system is pretty hit-or-miss, but they have just about everything.

The two services that I could recommend as alternatives to itunes are 7digital and amazon.com. I use 7 digital and the main thing I like about it is that almost all its MP3's are high quality(320k). The other good aspect about 7 digital is that you can re-download your music. Unfortunately you can only re-download it 3 times before having to buy it again(I think thats how it goes). Then for amazon.com their music service works the same way, however you only have 1 download per purchase. I haven't used the amazon.com music service, so I can't comment from experience on it. However I've heard good things about the service from people who have used it. I also don't use subscriptions services to buy my music, so I also can't comment from experience on them. Well I hope what I've said has helped and good luck finding good music.

ps: Sadly I do agree twifightDG. Unfortunatly record companies are trying to suck us dry with generic bad. I also find it really idiotic that I can only download a song I purchased a limited number of times. Having DRM in music is also a terrible idea, because it's just cumbersome and doesn't work. Overall I think the music industry is in need of a huge wake up call, and the only way to make them listen it to make them feel it in their pocket books.

i'm leaning towards sending doantions to the band and just illegally downloading then

i dont want to pay the middle man at all in this and apparently there is no good system

Sometimes, I'm so very glad that I'm an unscrouplous pirate. I've never even considered "legitimate" sources and from the sound of things, I wouldn't like it. I'm opposed just to digital downloads overall just because "that company may possibly maybe tank one day sometime" - the idea of paying money for something that will forever be gone if I format or change computer or, arguably worse, stop subscribing is just.. completely alien.

And then they wonder why people become pirates.

I hear there's stores that sell CDs still..that's like a disc with the music on it and you can do w/e you want with them!

Yeah... I always yell at my parents for doing that, and when I ask for an album they'll say they've already got it downloaded... (not illegally, but it still feels like it's wrong somehow) *sigh* that makes me sooo irritated...

Anyway, as for suggestions, look up your friends and see if you  can burn any of the CD's they already have.

Koda0 (^)

i'd just like to reward the musicians, but i'm also not trying to go broke

as for the smartass replies, i'm not paying 10 dollars for a cd when i only want one song

now you know

In that case Itunes and Amazon allow for one-song downloads for 99 cents. I use both, but I like Amazon's better because it just downloads the mp3, and Itunes goes straight to the Ipod format.

Pirating and sending donations to the band may make you feel better but what your doing is still illegal (as is speeding). lol. The band will never know what your doing unless you tell tham and that would be idiotic.

So pirate away and forget those donations

Me...i cannot afford buying cds (10-15$ a pop * 100+ cds will break you eventauly unless of course money is not an issue)

However bands that i really like that release albums that i really like i will buy them (Slipnot and A7x are good ex here)

Check this site out: www.bmgmusicservice.com You can get albums REALLY cheap and legaly. However their selection is not too great...

Arguably, of course.

WARNING: LONG POST

Sorry if it sounds like an ad; I tend to get a little excited when I'm explaining things.

I've been a member of eMusic for a few years now, and have generally been pleased. They offer a subscription service where you pay a certain amount of money each month for a limited number of downloads, with an option to buy "booster packs" of additional downloads. The new "Premium" plan is 50 downloads for $20, which works out to be about 40¢ per song; much lower than what iTunes and Amazon charge. The downloads don't roll over, though, so you lose any that you don't use within 30 days.

All songs are in unprotected MP3 format; quality varies but it's unusual to see anything below 128kbps. Their catalog is fairly large, too. It's exclusively indie-label stuff, but that's a plus for some people.

Unfortunately, they're doing a big service downgrade in July in exchange for access to Sony's 2-years-and-older back catalog. It's not as big a deal for new customers, as the biggest change is to kick the company's most loyal customers out of their older, cheaper plans, but they're also limiting the ability to re-download stuff you've bought. I also happen to think that the mere presence of Sony's crap on the site is a negative, as it adds the hassle of double-checking everything with the RIAA Radar, but if you're looking at Napster and the Zune thing then you probably don't care so much about that.

Amie Street is another option. I haven't used it yet, but it looks like another mostly indie-label site with an interesting business model. All songs on the site start out free, then rise in price (up to 98¢) as people download them. Their support FAQ says you're allowed to download up to 80 free songs in an 8-hour period, so you could theoretically grab huge piles of music as long as it's stuff no one else has found yet. (There's a way to browse only free stuff, too. I just checked.) They also let paying customers "REC" (recommend) a song and give store credit if that song gets popular and goes up in price.

All their music comes as unprotected MP3. Quality varies by album, but they claim to offer 256kbps VBR whenever possible. No idea how big their catalog is, though. As I said, I haven't used the site and only heard about it recently.

The place that's got me really excited, however, is Magnatune. They're the most artist- and consumer-friendly music store I've ever seen; it's downright stardockian. You have to buy full albums and the catalog is relatively small (they're actually a sort of non-exclusive record label), but there's no DRM, you can listen to the entire album before you buy, you can download files in multiple formats (MP3, OGG, lossless FLAC, cd-quality WAV), and the prices are low. Actually, the pricing is variable; you can pay as little as $5 for an album, but you can choose to pay extra to help support the artist. (They get half the money.)

They also offer a few subscription services. You can get a Streaming membership for $5/month that gets you unlimited music streaming and access to "exclusive podcasts", whatever those are. (You can actually stream every album for free, but they add a "You just listened to..." message after every track.) A Download membership costs $10/month and gets you the streaming stuff as well as unlimited downloads. You can also pay $250 for a lifetime download membership if you're rich/crazy/addicted to music. 

They also explicitly permit you to share 3 copies of anything you buy from them, because it helps bring in more customers and they can't really stop you anyway. You can also buy licenses if you need a soundtrack for a game or a film or one of those awful anime mashup videos that are always clogging up the u-tubes.