iTunes finally has won my business.

I’m one of the many once-pirates of music online. Napster. You remember the illegal version? I do. Then I went to AudioGnome when that folded. Then when that went under, I looked and found Bearshare.

I’m not really proud of once being a thief of music online. But more often than not, I eventually bought the album when I could afford it. I remember going to a concert and talking to the artist afterwards. I told him I was buying his album to authenticate the illegal collection of his work I had already collected. He told me that if I can find “good” copies online for free to go that route. I thought it was weird. I bought two cds at that point.

I took my collection (via hard drive) with me as I left college. Soon after, the hard drive failed. I lost all of the music I had collected. I was able to start again, but this time just ripping my own cds to the hard drive and doing it the legal way. For some reason I just prefer my music on my computer within easy reach of playing it while I work.

Now, I am getting back into getting my music online. The right way. It had been awhile since I tried iTunes, and with the new DRM free music, I can now feel that music I get is transferable, playable when I don’t use proprietary hardware, and free of electro-political control. That never did sit well with me.