Download sites

Question

I resent paying Apples Music Store prices, which is basically a file and is the same price or more expensive than most online CD sites and doesn't include all the packaging that goes with it. So I've been looking for an alternative download site, preferably one where you pay a monthly fee and download as much as you like. I tried Virgin and HMV but they are for PC users only, I tried a few more but had the same problem. I found one, I think it was easymusic which said Mac users could only download from there mp3 library, I wasn't sure if this meant you don't have as much choice of music or not.
Can anyone recommend a Mac and itunes compatible download site please?
Cheers,
Rich

Answer 1

All of the monthly fee sites, at least those carrying major-label content, are subscriptions where you never own the music, you just have the right to listen to it as long as you keep paying the monthly fee (stop paying the fee, you no longer can listen to the tracks you've downloaded). So those sites are often more expensive than buying tracks from the iTMS, though of course it depends on how you listen.
All such sites are also Windows only at the present time.
There are some sites such as eMusic which offer music from independent artists in MP3 format, and those may charge a bit less than the iTunes Music Store. But none at this time carry major-label content and aren't likely to; the record companies insist on copy protection, something not currently possible with MP3.
If you buy a lot of full CDs and don't like the online prices, just buy the physical CD. The advantage of the iTMS is when you want to just own a couple of tracks off a CD, not the full disk. Then the iTMS is significantly less expensive.