How do you purchase music?

iTunes.

I still buy CD’s but also download.

Amazon.com MP3s

I try to buy on CDs as much as I can, preferably from used CD stores. $4 or $5 for a used CD is a better price for higher quality sound than any of the online services. (Also, since I have a 6TB disk array at home and my smallest iPod is 16GB, I rip everything in Apple Lossless format.)

buy music?

I don’t usually buy music now. If I do, it’s CD.

Lately I’m thinking that I’ll buy it by the aquarium.

But I still buy CDs.

I usually download the individual MP3 tracks from Amazon.

iTunes for me. I like being able to buy only the songs I like.

ITunes mostly. I still buy the odd CD but probably only about three times a year nowadays.

I only buy music at shows.

i get plenty of music but i don’t, uh, purchase it per se . . .

Depends on what I want. I still like to get an actual CD if I want all of the songs on an album. If I just want a song, iTunes or Amazon (depending on which I have a gift card for at the moment). For independent artists, though, I typically write to them and ask what is best for them given their current concerns (compensation, inventory, and so forth).

I almost exclusively use iTunes, especially now that you can recover any purchases made on your account. I do buy CDs on rare occasions, though, if there are several songs that I like from the album.

@dappled_leaves what would you do if you couldn’t buy music at a live show? A lot if the artists that I love don’t tour anymore (some are dead) so I don’t have that option.

On vinyl.

I otherwise download.

Can’t think of any dead artists I haven’t already bought cds of… most new music that I acquire is, you know, new music.

I buy CDs. I always find songs that aren’t hits that I like better than the one’s that make it big.

CDs/Vinyl/Cassettes

I haven’t bought any music in over 2 years but when I do, I buy CDs from local stores, and if I can’t find what I want locally I buy the CD from Amazon. I stopped buying downloaded mp3s when I had a hard-drive crash and lost every one of what I’d already paid for, except for the ones for which I still owned the CDs.

@downtide

“I stopped buying downloaded mp3s when I had a hard-drive crash and lost every one of what I’d already paid for….”

Good point.
It’s time for me to backup my hard-drive again.

@downtide That’s one reason that I use iTunes. In the case that something like that happens, you can now recover every single one of your purchases onto any computer (as long has you have authenticated fewer than five computers) through your iTunes account. It’s also great if any of your music is accidentally deleted. This is a relatively new feature, and it has made a world of difference; I recovered more than 50 songs that had somehow been erased from my iPod over the years.

Pirate Bay?

I buy CD’s, usually at HMV or Archambault, a big chain of music stores in Québec. I like that place because they have everything. It’s great for underground and otherwise non mainstream music.

99% of the time I buy CD’s from the store. The rest would be online with whatever the artist’s website uses. If I can’t find something anywhere ..I get it from free websites.

I honestly cant remember the last time I bought music…

I purchase from iTunes or Amazon, but many times I download them from YouTube using RealPlayer.
If I really like a band, or I want to be sentimental, I’ll buy a CD.
I purchase most classical music, and download from YouTube my popular music, unless I really want to support a band or musician.

@dappled_leaves When I mentioned artists that have died it was because, I became a fan of Dusty Springfield after her death so couldn’t buy her music from live shows anymore but still would have liked the money from the sale to go to whoever was in her will rather than some record company bigwig.

@Leanne1986 Yeah, I have always been a music collector, so I have a pretty wide library of older music. I don’t think I would feel any obligation to “the estate of Dusty Springfield” if I suddenly found a need for more of her music, though.

Uh yeah, I also tend to not “legally purchase” music. To be fair I do try to contribute money to the artist/s in other ways if I am really interested in them, i.e. concert tickets, DVDs.

I mean, that makes it more legal right? Sorry, I mean makes it seem less wrong. I mean it makes me feel less guilty. * shakes head to self *

@Keep_on_running I find this whole “sharing music is wrong” thing mildly amusing. People get so outraged. Doesn’t anyone remember when it was completely normal to tape music off the radio, and to make mixed tapes for your friends? Everyone used to do that, all the time. It’s like there’s some kind of massive brainwashing exercise.