With all the negative publicity about DRM ever since the first music download services started up, many music services have either completely moved over to DRM free music or are in the process of doing so. However, while the majority of music on iTunes is DRM crippled (using its proprietary FairPlay copy protection system), iTunes is the leading US music retailer, so it seems like a lot of iTunes customers either don't know or even care that the music they buy enforces limitations on what the customer can do with their music.

Personally, I still prefer to buy albums on CDs instead of as downloads. I generally purchase CDs online from a variety of retailers, such as Play.com, CD Wow and Amazon, depending on the price and whether they are in stock. While this does mean that I need to wait a week or two for delivery, to me it feels better to be receiving physical products, not to mention higher quality music. A large rack of official music CDs also looks a lot prettier than even a rack of recordable CDs burnt from music obtained online.

Do you buy music online? If so, do you mind, care or even know whether the music you buy uses DRM?

I buy from iTunes occasionally. The DRM on the music I buy isn't really a big deal, as it's fairly easy to deal with.

Although I'm anti-DRM (as I think most of us here are), DRM-free services here in the UK are either hard to come by, or don't have much of a selection. I found iTunes to be the lesser of the evils.

I've only bought one album online---from Amazon. It had no DRM on it. The only reason I got it online was the fact it was hard to find in the US, and I needed it in a hurry just before a trip.

For speed and convenience, downloading has immense advantages that sometimes outweigh the slightly lesser quality found in mp3's. The ones I got were 320 kbps mp3's by the way.

The lack of DRM on these files was a bonus. If I made a habit of buying online, I would do my best to limit my selections to DRM free files, but that isn't always possible, depending on the particular music you are after.

I've bought a bit from Amazon, I used to have a bunch of iTunes from the Pepsi Cola giveaway years ago (the one where you could tip the bottle and make sure your cap wasn't a loser) but those have all either been re-encoded or erased. I doubt that I've got anything Apple still, except QT Alternative.

I didn't realise the store sells MP3s at 320kbps. At that bitrate, I would be just as happy downloading an album as MP3s as getting the official CD. Just a real pity that Amazon limits its MP3 service to the US.