I signed up for an account with eMusic this weekend and so far, I’m really liking it. Based on a monthly subscription model, I pay a set fee for a certain number or tracks a month. Right now, I’m doing the 50 tracks for about $15.00 package, which works out to about thirty cents a song. The music is delivered in a DRM-free MP3 format and is encoded in VBR at a median of about 192kbps. Normally, I encode at CBR 192kbps, so this works out totally fine. Once I’ve purchased a track, I can download it as many times as I wish, without affecting my monthly quota, which I love.

Since eMusic sells unlocked, DRM-free music, it doesn’t have everything. If you’re a top-20 loser, stick to Itunes. I find that for my musical leanings, just about 75-80% of the bands I like are on eMusic with at least one album. With over 2 million tracks and new music being added every week, I don’t feel restricted at all. In fact, 24 hours and 4 albums later, I’m in a bit of a Black Metal overdose. A good thing.

eMusic uses a download manager application that has clients for most all operating systems. However, the Linux client sucks major ass. Luckily, some intrepid user created a Java application called EMusicJ that does an excellent job getting my purchased music to my hard drive.

I hate DRM. I refuse to purchase from any label that uses it and as long as media companies try to shove it down people’s throats, I will strongly support piracy. However, I also like to able to support bands I like and eMusic is a great example of a sane and reasonable music store. Piracy to me is a protest not a permanent option. Thirty cents for a high-quality digital file seems about right to me. Ninety-nine cents for a DRM-infected Itunes track that you can only download once is a fucking insult and a rip-off. I hear it a lot and perhaps it’s become a bit of a cliche, but who the hell wakes up in the morning, wanting to pay more money for music with less value and use? Not me.

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