Getting Legal Music, Part 2: Finding DRM-Free Music Online

We’ve established that it can be challenging to obtain music legally in a way that appeals to consumers. In Part 1, we discussed some of the options that exist for buying music, and the pros/cons of each avenue. I concluded by sharing my personal sentiment that buying DRM-free music is the only suitable option, and that when it’s not possible to purchase this straight from the artist/label, a number of digital stores should be considered.

What are some of these digital stores that sell only DRM-free music? My all-time favorite is eMusic, which offers a fantastic selection of independent artists and an attractive pricing scheme. There are many more DRM-free stores, including AudioLunchbox, AmieStreet, and Amazon MP3. TechCrunch did a fantastic job rounding up these services in their article Finding DRM-Free Music Online. I encourage you to review this article for more details on the various services.

So if TechCrunch already reviewed these DRM-free sites, why am I even writing this? Well as you can see, there are a lot of options for buying DRM-free music on the web. But it can still be a challenge to find exactly what you’re looking for, especially since each site offers a completely different selection of music. For instance, the new album by Sunset Rubdown can be found on eMusic and Amazon MP3, but not AudioLunchbox, AmieStreet, gBox, etc. It can be quite time-consuming to go to each store and search for a specific artist or album, especially if you have a long “wanted to buy” list (like I usually do!). And what if multiple stores sell the same album, but you want to find the lowest price?

Enter YubNub.

YubNub is a like a command line for the Internet. If you’ve ever used a Linux system, the terminal on your Mac, or even the DOS command prompt on a Windows system, you probably appreciate the advantage of a command line for performing tasks that could prove quite tedious in a graphical environment. You can issue short, simple commands to perform all sorts of jobs, and you can even combine commands together to do much more advanced tasks.

YubNub takes the idea of a command line and sticks it on the web. And it can do all sorts of tasks, like searches, on almost any website you can think of. So what does all this have to do with finding DRM-free music? Well, instead of navigating to five different online music stores, finding the search page and entering the artist you want - only to discover that they don’t even have it - you can have YubNub do it for you. Oh, and it can do them all at the same time.

How? Well, I’ve taken the liberty of creating a few new YubNub commands just for this purpose. There were already commands to search the eMusic and Amazon MP3 stores. I added commands for gBox, AmieStreet, and AudioLunchbox. I then added a new command that’s known as a “mashup”. This command is special in that it invokes several other commands simultaneously. So the mashup I made to search for DRM-free music will simultaneously query eMusic, Amazon Mp3, AmieStreet, AudioLunchbox and gBox.

“That all sounds great”, you’re saying, “but how do I use it?” I’m glad you asked. Check out the step-by-step below:

Navigate your web browser to http://www.yubnub.org/
You should a page that looks somewhat like Google, with a search bar in the center. This bar is where you enter your command.
The command I created to search for DRM-free music is called, simply, “drmfree”. To perform a search for an artist, enter “drmfree artist name here” (minus the quotes) in the search box and press Enter.
You should see your web browser split into five smaller frames, or sections. Each frame will load one of the DRM-free music stores we talked about earlier - and search it for the artist or album you entered in the search box.

And that’s it! It couldn’t be simpler — no, wait, yes it could: YubNub can be integrated into almost any web browser or operating system, so you don’t even have to go to their website to use your new command! And YubNub can do a lot of other fun, time-saving things - I encourage you to check out their website and review some of their most-used commands and golden eggs (notable commands).

If you have any trouble using the “freedrm” command on YubNub, feel free to e-mail me. And if you’re interested in joining the eMusic service, feel free to send me your e-mail address and I’ll give you an invitation that earns both of us 50 free downloads!