I can’t decide whether the built-in music store that comes with iTunes is a good thing or a bad thing.
On one hand, I absolutely love being able to purchase a CD at my desk while at work for only $9.99 and have it charged directly to my credit card. It’s way easier than using my entire lunchbreak to head down to the store and spend upwards of $16.99 for the exact same music. Plus, it’s already in my digital music library (the only library I use to listen to music now) once it finishes downloading which saves me yet another step.
That said, I also absolutely love having the actual CD. I like displaying the case on my CD rack in my living room and being able to flip through the booklet that comes with it. I can, of course, pop it into my computer and quickly add it to my digital library and I’ve acheived pretty much the same outcome. The extra money usually is justified by having a physical copy of everything.
Recently, the iTunes Music Store has started including a digital PDF copy of the artwork and in some cases, you now receive other extras with the purchase of an album as well. For example, when I bought the newest Ryan Adams CD, Jacksonville City Nights, a week ago, I not only received a PDF of the artwork but also included was a short documentary video about the album. Very cool.
One major debate about the iTunes music store is that when you buy your music there, you are buying files that are encrypted in such a manner that you are limited in your use of the music. Although this is completely true, there are more workarounds than you could possibly imagine. For example, when you buy a song from the iTunes Music Store, you are only allowed to listen to that album on 5 computers. Also, you can only burn either 7 or 10 (I can’t remember) copies of that album. After you’ve maxed out the 5 computer rule and burned the maximum amount of CDs, the files are in a sense, worthless. However, there is a ridiculously simple way around all of this. So simple, in fact, that I can’t even believe that this is a topic of debate anymore. Try this on for size: 1) Purchase the album from the iTunes Music Store 2) burn one copy onto a CD 3) Delete the original files that you bought from your computer and 4) Import the songs from the CD into your library just like you would if you had actually bought the CD at a store. The End. At this point, the files you just imported are unencrypted and you can listen to them on as many computers as you want and you can burn as many CDs as you want. The entire process takes about 5 minutes.
When I sit down and think about it, I feel like I’m pretty much right in the middle but when it comes down to where I prefer to buy my music, I definitely tend to swing in the direction of the iTunes Music Store. In fact, the last dozen or so albums I’ve bought are from there. If the music store didn’t exist, I would still definitely be buying all of the same CDs from a real store but since it’s there, it’s just way too easy not to use it.
I guess it really doesn’t matter all that much. For some reason, though, I still feel a little guilty…
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