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Buying Music in 2021.

~tskaalgard

Good morning, everyone.

This morning I was watching a video about the death of electronics stores in the United States and it made me worry a little about being able to buy music. I don't often buy music, but I usually do so at used CD stores, as this seems to be the only DRM-free way to buy music today. I'm a little worried this too will soon dry up and I'll be left without a legal way to obtain music.

Is there another way I'm missing? (I'm obviously not talking about pirating - not that I'm against it, just that it's off-topic here)

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Replies

~jetgirl wrote:

Depends on who you're listening to. For mainstream artists they'll post a store link when an album comes out and you can get the tape or whatever directly from them or an online retailer. Most of the psychical medium options come with a free mp3 album. If they're indie I get stuff from their Bandcamp page. If I just want one mp3 song ill go to amazon and pay the $1.20 or whatever. Google Play stopped letting you buy files and apple's stuff has to be converted sometimes to run on your mp3 player. They're all moving to/pushing the subscription models tho which sucks.

~stargazer wrote:

I have been buying vinyl at local antique and 2nd hand stores lately as there are quite a few in my area. Many times the albums are only $0.99 and so I can buy a whole stack of them for the price of one new album. Small towns seem to offer the best deals.

~pr1ba wrote (thread):

A world in which Stallman is being bullied, who talks a lot about digital content and the dangers of these decisions. Unfortunately, there will be no harmonious solutions in such a world.

~tffb wrote (thread):

I usually do Bandcamp when I am buying. By the way, were you watching "The 8-Bit Guy" and his video about the death of electronic stores? Because I just watched that, and it seems a LOT went out of business in the past 20 years.

Hope you're doing good :)

~starbreaker wrote (thread):

One more thing: have you considered your local public library? If they lend CDs, borrow some you like, rip them, and return them. Existing law doesn't explicitly forbid ripping physical media for personal use. I do this regularly.

~starbreaker wrote (thread):

Amoeba Music ships anywhere in the US, but I don't think they sell secondhand CDs. There's also eBay, I suppose, as well as Amazon. I usually try Amoeba first, though.

Amoeba Music

Also...

=> Bandcamp: buy digital music (and sometimes physical media) directly from artists

Bandcamp doesn't do DRM, and you can download purchases as MP3, Ogg Vorbis, or FLAC.