Magnatune – Music Done Right

20Sep07

I’ve been slacking off in terms of blogging lately – but I plan on making it more regular in the future.

I recently found myself purchasing an album from Magnatune.com. For those of you who haven’t heard of Magnatune, it is essentially an independent online music distributor. It doesn’t have all the popular music on other sites (it typically has independent artists), but it has one huge advantage over everything else: no DRM. You can download the music, burn it to a CD, transfer it to any audio player, and just enjoy the absence of their control.

Additionally, they let you download virtually every format: High and low quality MP3, AAC, OGG, WAV, and even FLAC. With the later two, you get the exact same quality on a CD, since they are both lossless. But perhaps the most surprising feature of magnatune is their licensing. You are allowed to send whatever you buy to 3 friends, legally. Additionally, they also have Podcast licensing available.

When you buy music from Magnatune, you choose the price. There is a minimum and maximum price (in my case, it was $5 and $18) and the artist directly gets 50% of whatever you pay. This really gives you the feel of compensating the artist for their work, which is a feeling you don’t get buying music in a more traditional way.

But my favorite part is being able to purchase a CD. For about $5 more, they will let you download the album immediately and they will send you a physical CD in the mail. This is great for those on slow internet connections, or those who like having a collection of CDs.

My whole Magnatune experience has left me with a good feeling. Not only do I get good, DRM free music, but I also get the satisfaction of knowing that the artist is directly being paid for it, instead of going through a label. Magnatune, good job.