Because 99% of the downloading sites/apps have gone away due to the RIAA lawsuits,
I mentioned Amazon above as having DRM free MP3 files, which is true. If you open the file in a text editor, like Vim on Linux, you will see they put your name in the header, so if it gets out into the wild, they’ll know the source. Obviously, this can be edited. I haven’t bothered. I have shared a song here and there on rare occasion with a friend on the basis that they may like the performer or genre, but never wholesale offered anything up to the public.
One time I bought a slew of downloads and received them from a Russian company called Legal Sounds, which had replaced (?) said header with their info. If you read the FAQ, they claim to comply with the copyright laws of the Russian Federation. While it was a “the cost is suspiciously good”, how far down the rabbit hole does one go? In my case, these albums, by performers I knew and was familiar with simply weren’t available from other download sources.
I used to also use Ubuntu music, which had a set up similar to Amazon, but they’re no longer in business I believe.
I used to work in a music store back in the early 90s, and even then the cost of CDs was fixed at $16.99 typical, sometimes slightly more for something popular. What became readily apparent was that the prices were being fixed and the performers were often getting shafted. With the now long gone company I worked for in the middle. Even as someone semi industry sympathetic, as an industry, they’ve (RIAA) done more to slice their own throats than anything else.
