How to do music ownership these days?

[NightPuffins]

I want to ask how people do music ownership these days?

Three things that are important to me:
first, that when I pay for music I have it forever
second, that some of what I pay goes via royalties to the artist
third, that I can listen to it anywhere - online, offline.

So where should I be going for this?

I still have boxes of CDs that I haven’t listened to for a decade as I don’t have a CD player anymore.
Then I used to buy and download on itunes but I’m unsure what happens to that collection if I ever ditch my iphone for a different make.
I sometimes play music videos on youtube but the adverts are so annoying and I can’t own anything permanently there.
I’ve never got into Spotify because I’m assuming I would only have that music so long as I pay and lose it when I stop?
I don’t want to be tied into subscription forever, I want to pay once and own forever.

You never 'own' music - you pay money to play it. The artist owns it, copyright etc.

When you download it you are purchasing a license to play it.

A cd or record or cassette is yours, legally. But you don't own the music, ever.

Ok, you’re nitpicking on the wording. I think it’s pretty clear I’m not trying to gain the copyright to anyone’s work.
Yes, I do own the CDs that I bought. But they are no use these days, hence me asking what others are doing these days in place of that.
I’m simply trying to find out the best way to permanently keep the copy I pay for, access it wherever I want, in a way that rewards the artist.

Bandcamp allows you to buy digital downloads or physical format music and pay for it just once. It has regular Bandcamp Fridays when all the purchase money goes to the artist. Not all artists are on Bandcamp though, so it depends whether the music you want to listen to is there, and whether the device you download to has good enough sound quality. It’s a dilemma! I recently bought a new CD player so that I can continue to listen to my CDs as I don’t want to buy albums twice (three times, in some cases, as I originally had them on vinyl). It has Bluetooth for streaming iTunes or Spotify and the sound is pretty good for something smaller than a shoebox.

🙄to the first response.

OP, I do pay for a subscription to Amazon Music Unlimited- I use that to play in the car and Alexa. It’s brilliant because I might hear a song I’d forgotten all about on an advert and can play it instantly.

However, I also have favourite artists/albums/songs and if they are my absolute favourites then I buy them on vinyl. I like the feel of a vinyl record and the artwork on the sleeves. I buy them mainly from a market stall in Barnsley market.

I can’t buy a physical copy of every song/album that I love because I’d never get through the front door from them all and that seems like a good way to have actual copies of my favourites but still listen to all of them!

Yeah they’ve made this difficult nowdays. In theory I feel the same as you, but in practice I have given up on “owning” music and just have Spotify, it’s just so convenient. I do pay for it to avoid ads but you can have a free account with occasional interruptions for ads (like the radio kind of thing) and you’ll still have your playlists on there so you wouldn’t “lose” your music. I guess you would if Spotify ever went out of business but I feel like you’d see that coming a mile off and be able to make other arrangements. You can also download songs to listen to offline for eg a plane journey etc. Not sure if you can do that with a free account I guess? Very occasionally an artist isn’t on Spotify in the first place or pulls their music off it (rare but there was a sudden spate of this when Jay-Z set up his alternative music streaming service from big artists that he is close to). If you do have music on your playlist that later gets pulled there is still a record on your playlist of songs that you had on there that Spotify no longer have the rights to. So you can’t play them from there any more but can still remember what you wanted to listen to and can go looking for it elsewhere I guess (I personally have just lived with not being able to listen to those songs).

If it's a favourite album then it's good to have it on cd or vinyl. Just buy a player as they're not expensive. I used to download music via Google Music then they deleted a favourite album because it went out of copyright. I bought it on cd via ebay so I have a hard copy now. I don't listen to music regularly enough to justify a subscription.

Ds can download stuff from YouTube without having to pay. He listens to niche stuff that you can't find on a streaming service or on cd. World music and folk stuff mainly.

Good question OP, I’ve been wondering this recently as I don’t want to pay a subscription forever.
I think you should always be able to access your iTunes account, even without an iPhone, because I’m pretty sure I can access mine on my windows PC. Not totally confident of how it all works though

You can take your music from iTunes and put it onto a computer or another phone or tablet or even a memory stick.

Buy your favorite albums on vinyl and just pay for Spotify premium. I lobbed my CD collection in a skip a few years ago because it’s worthless now, and that was a large collection.

I've stopped buying music because I've bought it so many times and I just feel ripped off. They make it so hard to properly permanently own anything.

I don't think I'm nitpicking op.

Is your question really - how do I pay for music so I get the best value for money? Or is it - how do I pay for music so the artist gets the most money from me? Or - is it better to own hard copies in case I want to ditch a particular app/online service?

For me I pay a subscription. I pay to see artists I love live and appreciate gigs and concerts are a lot more expensive these days as music is basically free or extremely cheap.

If you want to have something in your hand, CDs or vinyl is good. If you want the artist to make the most money then buy directly from them not a retailer.

I use Spotify - the account can come with me on whatever device I use, whether Apple or Samsung.
I download music to listen to it offline.
I have no need to buy individual albums - it would just be more expensive.

However I know people who refuse to use any online music and only use CDs and vinyl. If they want to listen to it in their car they upload CDs and burn it to a memory stick.

It depends what's important to you. For me cost, ease and variety are important.

I generally buy a CD, rip it to the computer and then copy it to my phone. We have only just swapped our old car with CD player to a newer one with bluetooth, but we still have a CD player in the house.

I don't do streaming. I have bought a couple of songs on Bandcamp, as that was the easiest way to get them without getting a whole CD.

I still have boxes of CDs that I haven’t listened to for a decade as I don’t have a CD player anymore.

Same here. DD bought me this last Christmas (although I got the bright red version). I love it.
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/8808833?clickPR=plp:6:11

No idea about individual tracks though, I used to download odd ones off YouTube via a mp3 converter but that was years ago.

I think this is an example of where what customers actually want has been left behind as the subscription model creates more commercial value. I still want to own albums I can listen to offline. Why is it now so hard?

@Notoironing I completely agree. The subscription model is taking over, but it’s the opposite of what I want. I just want to pay for what I want, when I want it. For the same reason I cancelled my Netflix subscription - I was paying per month and searching for things to make the subscription worthwhile. Would much rather just pay a one-off fee to watch something when I really want to.

Thanks everyone for the comments. It’s interesting to hear the different ways everyone is doing this.

I’ve never bought any vinyl in my life! I grew up on cassettes and progressed to CDs. Seems like the easiest option for me is to get a small CD player for full albums like some of you have, and use the free version of spotify/youtube/etc for the occasional or one-off songs I like from hearing them on adverts, in films, etc.

I had a Fitbit that you could put music onto (though only a small number of albums at once). It was recalled for a fault, and I tried to buy something similar, but it no longer exists - subscriptions only! I think Garmin do one you can put your music on, but at a much higher price. The music aspect was important to me, so I just didn't buy anything.

🙄

I thought this was going to be about owning your own music that you've made!