Best site for DRM-free online music purchasing?

[Clippy]

7 Digital is DRM free.

As of September 2008, more than 4 million tracks are available, all without DRM restrictions.

Source

[Moscow Mule]

I don't see that: in my Music folder is an iTunes folder which contains some metadata and a folder called iTunes Music: in that are folders by artist's name, and each of those contains a folder for each album by that artist, and each of those contains nothing but the .m4a files. This applies whether the music was purchased from the iTMS, ripped from CD, purchased from Amazon, or downloaded from somewhere else.

Output from ls -al which would show even hidden files:

total 173024
drwxr-xr-x  12 Nick  Nick       408  9 Feb  2008 .
drwxr-xr-x   3 Nick  Nick       102 12 Jan  2007 ..
-rw-r--r--@  1 Nick  Nick   2738743  9 Feb  2008 01 Speak to Me.m4a
-rw-r--r--@  1 Nick  Nick   5994606  9 Feb  2008 02 Breathe.m4a
-rw-r--r--@  1 Nick  Nick   7987567  9 Feb  2008 03 On the Run.m4a
-rw-r--r--@  1 Nick  Nick  13751351  9 Feb  2008 04 Time.m4a
-rw-r--r--@  1 Nick  Nick   9711035  9 Feb  2008 05 The Great Gig In the Sky.m4a
-rw-r--r--@  1 Nick  Nick  12886297  9 Feb  2008 06 Money.m4a
-rw-r--r--@  1 Nick  Nick  15691268  9 Feb  2008 07 Us and Them.m4a
-rw-r--r--@  1 Nick  Nick   7201929  9 Feb  2008 08 Any Colour You Like.m4a
-rw-r--r--@  1 Nick  Nick   7868926  9 Feb  2008 09 Brain Damage.m4a
-rw-r--r--@  1 Nick  Nick   4733240  9 Feb  2008 10 Eclipse.m4a

That is because you clicked "keep my music organised" (or something) in your preferences.

[NickFitz]

Hmm, apart from anything else iTunes (or maybe MacOSX) seems to put a load of other files in with the music, so copying files is a bit more involved than select, copy, paste.

I don't see that: in my Music folder is an iTunes folder which contains some metadata and a folder called iTunes Music: in that are folders by artist's name, and each of those contains a folder for each album by that artist, and each of those contains nothing but the .m4a files. This applies whether the music was purchased from the iTMS, ripped from CD, purchased from Amazon, or downloaded from somewhere else.

Output from ls -al which would show even hidden files:

total 173024
drwxr-xr-x  12 Nick  Nick       408  9 Feb  2008 .
drwxr-xr-x   3 Nick  Nick       102 12 Jan  2007 ..
-rw-r--r--@  1 Nick  Nick   2738743  9 Feb  2008 01 Speak to Me.m4a
-rw-r--r--@  1 Nick  Nick   5994606  9 Feb  2008 02 Breathe.m4a
-rw-r--r--@  1 Nick  Nick   7987567  9 Feb  2008 03 On the Run.m4a
-rw-r--r--@  1 Nick  Nick  13751351  9 Feb  2008 04 Time.m4a
-rw-r--r--@  1 Nick  Nick   9711035  9 Feb  2008 05 The Great Gig In the Sky.m4a
-rw-r--r--@  1 Nick  Nick  12886297  9 Feb  2008 06 Money.m4a
-rw-r--r--@  1 Nick  Nick  15691268  9 Feb  2008 07 Us and Them.m4a
-rw-r--r--@  1 Nick  Nick   7201929  9 Feb  2008 08 Any Colour You Like.m4a
-rw-r--r--@  1 Nick  Nick   7868926  9 Feb  2008 09 Brain Damage.m4a
-rw-r--r--@  1 Nick  Nick   4733240  9 Feb  2008 10 Eclipse.m4a

[d000hg]

DRM-free tracks from iTunes use the industry standard AAC encoding, which replaced MP3 and is supported by just about everything made in the past five years (and a fair amount of older stuff too).

Hmm, apart from anything else iTunes (or maybe MacOSX) seems to put a load of other files in with the music, so copying files is a bit more involved than select, copy, paste.

Also, no way am I putting iTunes on my PC. And my Mac is used my my wife, don't want to risk screwing up her iPod-sync using it.

[NickFitz]

PodToPC - works for me.

Ah, of course - AAC has only been an industry standard since 1997, so naturally Microsoft haven't yet added support for it

Yet, strangely, the Zune supports it - this implies that the Media Player in Windows CE is more capable than the one they ship with their desktop OS

[SupremeSpod]

That still leaves you with the issue of getting tunes off itunes and on to non itunes compatible hardware.
For that reason, I avoid itunes

PodToPC - works for me.

[NickFitz]

That still leaves you with the issue of getting tunes off itunes and on to non itunes compatible hardware.
For that reason, I avoid itunes

DRM-free tracks from iTunes use the industry standard AAC encoding, which replaced MP3 and is supported by just about everything made in the past five years (and a fair amount of older stuff too).

[Spacecadet]

I though iTunes was DRM free on 80% of their catalog?

Seems to be at a fee.

Apple iTunes Store goes '100% DRM-free' - allegedly

That still leaves you with the issue of getting tunes off itunes and on to non itunes compatible hardware.
For that reason, I avoid itunes

[Scrag Meister]

That's not DRM free. I've had a right nightmare trying to get my stuff on iTunes onto a memory stick to use in my car. The car has a Windows Media Player thing and will only read the stuff I haven't bought. Apparently you can get converters (which are illegal) but it seemed like such a pain that I just bought the things I really wanted again off a potentially dodgy Russian site called Legal Sounds or something.

I though iTunes was DRM free on 80% of their catalog?

Seems to be at a fee.

Apple iTunes Store goes '100% DRM-free' - allegedly

[Qdos Contractor]

iTunes?

That's not DRM free. I've had a right nightmare trying to get my stuff on iTunes onto a memory stick to use in my car. The car has a Windows Media Player thing and will only read the stuff I haven't bought. Apparently you can get converters (which are illegal) but it seemed like such a pain that I just bought the things I really wanted again off a potentially dodgy Russian site called Legal Sounds or something.

[Jog On]

gomusic?

[NotAllThere]

iTunes?

[d000hg]

I've used Amazon before, anywhere known for being cheap or having other benefits like ability to re-download freely, etc?