Apple Archive

The Many Failings of BuyMusic.com

- 2003.07.25

Low End Mac Reader Specials

Memory To Go Special: MacPro 8 Core 8GB kit $232 / 4GB kit $116 / 2GB kit $72. New Macbook 2GB DDR3-$65. HARD DRIVES available -- Free shipping / LIfetime warranty.

Download Typestyler, still the Ultimate Styling Tool for Internet, Print and Video Graphics. Works great in Classic with a Native OS X Version on the way. Free Tryout: www.typestyler.com

LA Computer Company: Specials on AppleCare, iMac's, Apple Batteries and Apple A/C Adapters. Also Great prices on Used Apple Computers. Call 1-800-941-7654 Click Here.

Mac users can finally play Party Poker for Mac. Not only that, they can also learn how to play PokerStars for Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, laptops, and LCD TVs side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for a new cell phone GPS products or MP3 players. The Ciao network makes searching products easy for you.

The new BuyMusic.com site is essentially a copy of Apple's iTunes Music Store - except that it only works on PCs. (If you're browsing the Web on a Mac or not using Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher, you'll get a nice error message when you visit the BuyMusic.com website.)

When I first heard about it, I was excited that PC users could finally get paid music downloads by the song, especially at only 79¢ per song. Then I actually went to the site to see what it was like.

First of all, you have to use Windows Media Player to listen to the files. Not only do I find Windows Media player confusing, I also don't like the way Microsoft can find out what files you're playing with its software. I'd rather use something like WinAmp to listen to music - but BuyMusic.com says that "it may not work." This, of course, means that if you have a preference in MP3 players, you may as well forget it; if you want to use BuyMusic.com, you must use what they tell you to. The files are also not MP3s; they're the proprietary WMA format.

Then I noticed how BuyMusic.com uses SDMI encryption. This means that it only works with certain portable MP3 players - and the iPod isn't one of them. It also means that you can't move your tunes onto a different computer or play them in a different player (unless you buy a secondary license, which allows you to only play your songs on the other computer and not burn them to CD). And you can burn songs to only a certain number of CDs.

And if you buy a Mac to replace your PC.... Well, all those songs that you bought and paid for - they'll be useless.

As far as the selection goes, there seems to be quite a bit. Not everything that I could ever hope for, and I was unable to find any classical music, which disappointed me somewhat.

And so much for the 79¢ songs; most of the songs I were interested in cost 99¢, the same price Apple charges for songs with much less restrictive license management.

Isn't all this part of the reason why all of the other music downloading services failed? I mean, with pages to read about what you can and can't do with your music, any sane person would just go to KaZaa and download an MP3 file with which they won't have to worry about what it will and won't be compatible with. Too many restrictions get people confused, and they'll figure it's not worth the trouble.

Since I use a PC as well as a Mac, I could theoretically try it out, but I don't think I want to invest my money into something so restricted and copy protected - especially something I can't copy over to my Mac in order to load it onto my iPod.

While I'm not a big fan of the selection that Apple has to offer (although it should improve soon, with the indie labels signing on), its system is much better. Download a song. You paid for it; it's yours. You can burn it to CD however many times you want, you can copy it to your MP3 player, and if it's not compatible, you can always burn the files to CD and then encode them as MP3s so they can be copied to your MP3 player.

Apple doesn't put the same kind of complicated restrictions that makes sites like BuyMusic.com less desirable. I do think (and I'm clearly not alone) that once Apple's iTunes Music Store gets itself over to the Windows platform, it will prove to be much more successful than sites like BuyMusic.com.

But BuyMusic.com does provide Apple with competition, and it provides Apple with a reason to get iTunes ported to Windows quickly.

The good thing for Apple is that BuyMusic.com isn't subscription based, so users aren't tied to it for a fixed period of time if they decide they don't like it or find that they prefer Apple's system of providing music.

Recent Apple Archive articles

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2008 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.


Have a question?
Ask an expert!

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Best Used Macs
Video Cards
Email Lists
InfoMac's Low
End Mac Forum

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
MacMall
TechRestore
MacResQ
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.