eMusic



While I've argued before that, just as Microsoft has no obligation to make its software run on any OS other than Windows, Apple is under no obligation to make its music downloads compatible with anything other than its own MP3 player, in this case, the iPod.

That said, I'm absolutely against the idea of digital rights management (DRM) and any restrictions on downloaded music. Indeed, until a few months ago, I never downloaded a single music file from the iTunes Store. Granted, I have an iPod, and only a handful of Macs at home, so the DRM restrictions imposed by Apple really don't impose an unreasonable burden upon me.

But that's not the point. DRM is still restrictive, and on principle I'm dead against it. It's also not clear that all the music labels require DRM.

Case in point: eMusic. Number two in music downloads with over 200,000 subscribers (#1 is the iTMS), eMusic imposes no DRM. The downloads are one's own to keep iinperpetuity; the subscription offered by eMusic relates to the number of downloads/month, rather than the duration of use of the music. I'm not a fan of subscription-based offerings like Rhapsody and Napster, since the music is only playable for so long as one keeps coughing up the subscription fee. That seems too restrictive for my taste, but others might disagree.

eMusic does provide a free trial, which I availed myself of, but rapidly exceeded my limit (meaning that an actual subscription took effect immediately), since each track counts as a download, rather than an entire album. Not surprising, since each track costs $.99 at iTunes. But it's easy to rapidly download a lot of tracks. Just downloading Partch's Delusion of the Fury nearly maxed out my account on its own.

eMusic installs an application that works fine with OS X to manage downloads, which end up in a folder on the Desktop. In practice, I'm fine with that, although I wonder why the tracks just couldn't download straight from the links on the site, rather than requiring an entire application to do this outside of a browser. I like the fact that eMusic caters to independent labels. But that's also a weakness---while I was delighted to find Terry Riley's The Harp of New Albion that I've had since the 80's on cassette (which I didn't feel like digitizing), a lot of music I'd love to have just isn't there. You're not going to find that latest Steve Reich release or many other compelling albums. On the other hand, if the offerings at eMusic are pretty much what you want to have, then it's very cost-effective, so long as you download a lot each month. If you don't use your alloted monthly downloads, you lose them.

So overall, I''m giving eMusic a go for the next month. I'm not finding much more that I'm dying to download, however. After a bunch of Harry Partch albums and the Riley work, I downloaded a choral work by Schoenberg that I only had on LP, but the other work I was interested in wasn't to be had on eMusic. I did get it easily for $.99 on iTunes, DRM and all. Apple would be smart to ditch the DRM it uses, but it won't, since it doesn't feel it has to. That's a shame, since I view DRM as an obstacle, not an enabler.

Posted: Tue - January 23, 2007 at 10:12 PM          

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