What does DRM-free EMI on iTunes mean to me?

[sraun]

I buy very little music that would be considered modern or popular -
my music library is almost entirely classical, with a smattering of
60's & 70's rock, filk, folk, new age and celtic. I use a non-iPod
MP3 player synced to a Windows box (I keep meaning to move that to a
Linux box) - on the Windows box I'm currently using Multimedia Jukebox
for my music player.

If I'm looking to buy music, I'm mostly interested in buying classical
tracks that I don't already have. The couple of times I've gone
looking, I haven't found any good sources - iTunes had _maybe_ a few
dozen classical tracks the last time I looked, some other services had
up to a hundred. I'm mostly given up - my choices are pirated tracks,
or buying CD's, so I mostly buy.

So, what does EMI going DRM-free on iTunes mean to me? Is it likely
to be worth trying iTunes again sometime this summer? My impression
from reading their press release is "No" - it looks like this is all
stuff that iTunes is currently carrying, just a 'better' version.

Anyone want to recommend a service that actually has a good
selection of classical music? I'm currently in search of (on an
on-again, off-gain basis) copies of Beethoven's Choral Fantasy and
Brahms' German Requiem.

Comments

[guyfie.livejournal.com]

alt.binaries.music.classical
alt.binaries.sounds.losless.classical
alt.binaries.mp3.classical
alt.binaries.music.classical
alt.binaries.dvd.music.classical

Should give you about 1000 hours per day.

[sraun]

My (minimal) experiences with the alt.binaries tree in the past do not lead me to think of them as a usable resource for my needs. The signal to noise ratio is too high - I tend to be in search of particular things, which may or may not be there, and I'm not inclined to grab everything that comes by - I don't have the time or interest to sort through them, or the available disk space to indiscriminately (or should that be promiscuously?) store everything that comes through.

[guyfie.livejournal.com]

With the right newsgroup reader software it is pretty easy to just browse what is coming through and select what is interesting to you. The selection at any given moment may be unrelated to your interests. But if you check once a week over a few months you are likely to find a whole lot that interests you.

[jbru.livejournal.com]

The immediate benefit to you is likely small to nil but I think (without having looked at the release yet) this is a good sign for electronically distributed music in the long term. If a big label like EMI sees that dropping the DRM doesn't hurt their overall sales, other labels will follow suit and that means that the music you want will likely become more easily accessible.

[kd5mdk.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure iTunes has more than a few dozen tracks. Maybe less than a hundred albumns, but I think they're better.

eMusic.com should have all of Naxos' collection. That's got to be worth something.

[pmrabble.livejournal.com]

eMusic is where the local band is releasing their stuff (gee, I already have the CDs). Browsing around shows the usual randomness, but there's plenty of good enough stuff there.

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

Emusic.com is non-drm'd, and has high bitrate MP3s (not poxy AAC, although if you have a Pod, obviously it's fine) for download, and has a large classical selection, mainly from Naxos. There is a subscription fee, not a per-track cost.

I found the 9th Symphony (4 versions) with a quick search, but I'm sure there'd be the Choral Fantasy on one of the collections. There are 6 versions of Brahms' Requiem, including the Toscanini one.