FIRST INQpressions Amazon.com 's MP3 store only lacks Vorbis and FLAC
ONLINE RETAIL giant Amazon.com has - as our Charlie D reported - surprised everyone with its
MP3 store. So how would it work for a DRM-free Linux user?. It turns out that very well.
Despite Charlie's - and Amazon.com's - warnings about the process being for U.S. customers only, I loaded my SeaMonkey browser and decided to check how far I could get.
I typed the name of the first obscure song that came to my mind... hrmm... late '90s obscure band 'Cowboy Junkies' came to my mind. So I typed the bands name and lo and behold, a good list of songs to choose from, most of which at $0.89. Not bad. I selected the band's surely one-hit-wonder "Common Disaster ", which was also what I expected from online music purchases.
After clicking on the "Buy MP3" button, the next screen suggests you download the "Amazon MP3 downloader", available in versions for Windows XP and Mac OS-X. However, the page made it clear that it was an optional step. "If you would rather not install the Amazon MP3 downloader, you can purchase individual songs without it." Bravo, Amazon!
The next step is a confirmation screen where you can still back out from the purchase. I clicked on "Download Song" and was taken to the payment page. I selected my international Mastercard, selected my Miami, FL U.S. mailing address - OK, so here's where I cheated, because I DO have a US shipping and billing address, and I've had one for years. After that screen, a download of the MP3 file was initiated!. The file was named "2 - A Common Disaster.mp3", hinting that the file names include the track number on the original CD.
After this step you're taken to the payment page
Six minutes later - as this poor scribbler only has 256K broadband- I had the 6.5MB big song in my PC, an unprotected, DRM-free MP3 legally purchased from Amazon.com. Oh the wonder. I played it with the open sauce
Audacious MP3 player - an XMMS derivative but with a nice Gnome interface-, and confirmed the song quality is as good as you can get by ripping your own legal CDs and encoding at 256K quality.
more:
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquir...-longer-excuse
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