Hi For music :
- bandcamp
- quobuzz
- subvert.fm
- ampwall.com
I use heavely alternative.to for finding apps and website.
this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2025
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Asklemmy
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My god, please use lossless flac or wav or something. mp3 is such a garbage format.
For music, Qobuz is my go-to, there's also 7digital, bandcamp and HDtracks.
I prefer to use HDtracks as a last resort because they only allow you to download your purchase once, whereas with Qobuz for example, you can keep downloading your purchase for as long as it on their servers.
Bandcamp! It lets you download a few different file types.
Not sure about comics and movies, though. I would also like to know the answer to that one.
Bandcamp for music. Libro.fm for audiobooks.
If buying isn't owning pirating isn't stealing.
This makes me sad :( I want to support art but I use the software I want and own the file. I hate everything is now renting it.
Donate to the artist the price then pirate it
The 2 options to solve this issue are buy physical & digitize it yourself, or pirate & donate to the creators...
If you're open to a perspective change (similar to the patientgamers community), act as if mainstream digital content does not exist.
What i find interesting is that pubblishes have gone to every length to reduce the benefits of consumers and increase their margins. Yet, pirating is still there. The question is whethere it has reduced. I was pretty content with buying media i liked and then ripping it but nowadays there is hardly a new CD or DVD being produced. Subscriptions are not the way, especially when only a few large players are controlling the market. They just do what they want.
For movies there are basically no real options to buy DRM free video. There are a few very minor sources like the VOD store of Vimeo, but catalog is limited.
The only functional option for most content is to buy a drive compatible with Libredrive, get a license for makemkv, and just rip blu-ray discs, but that comes with a high startup cost and is more involved.
Alternatively, buy the physical copy and just torrent a digital one.
I would independently send money to the people who make the content and just pirate it honestly because then you support the creator and also get to control your content as much as you want
Music : Quobuz - buy it, download it, it's yours. Books : ebooks.com - same [EDIT:] if you buy within their "DRM free" selection.
But with Qobuz remember to download your music immediately, or it might disappear! Bandcamp does not suffer from this limitation.
I've had purchased music disappear from Bandcamp unfortunately:
ebooks.com is all Adobe DRM so this no good as it looked to a app
Not all. And their search tool lets you look for non-DRM books.
Yes but it is very limited on comic it 5 pages of drm free
There's 7digital, which has a music store offering DRM-free MP3 downloads, as well as FLAC for many selections.
forgot to say humblebundle.com is the only place i know you and buy and own comics files like pdf and cbz.
some indie publishers sell PDFs of comics, or include them free when you buy the physical copy
In general, buying straight from the publisher or artist gets the best results for all media.
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Most DRMed ebook filetypes can be converted to non-DRM ones using Calibre and addons for it. That might cover comics, but I can't confirm as I've never been into digital comics.
Apple's iTunes used to let you pay like 30ยข more to get certain tracks in mp3. Others have mentioned bandcamp. About a decade ago Amazon used to be straight mp3 downloads for purchased tracks, but I'm not sure if that's standard anymore.
Amazon used to be straight mp3 downloads for purchased tracks, but I'm not sure if that's standard anymore.
Still there, though I'll try just about anything else before going to Amazon, because Amazon bad.
Well. I bought myself an extra 2tb ssd drive and I pirate all the media I want. It's mine. Forever (or until the drive takes a poop). I use VLC to watch any videos. Free open source video player.
I just hook my PC to my TV via HDMI to watch whatever. (There are ways to turn off your laptop screen while doing this if you want).
I use bit torrents to pirate.
Piratebay is still out there for torrents. I get audio books from audiobookbay and I get ebooks from librarygenesis. I get comics from.. somewhere. I can check later and get you a link if you want.
I put those on my tablet and read them with some free app. Cbr files.
I used to pay for media. Like a shmuck.
Got tired of paying subscription services where my favorite shows just disappeared randomly.
Or paying for multiple subscriptions that kept increasing in $$ every year.
Nah .
Pirating is the way.
Every now and then I'll buy an actual DVD for an old movie if I can't find a torrent for it. Usually used on eBay.
At least I own it.
But yeah. Get you an extra drive. Just get the raw files yourself.
Soulseek >>>>> piratebay by a wide margin for music.
Only place I've found like 90s underground Memphis rap demos and obscure black metal and shit that's not even on spotify.
I've been building my own collection for years. I have around 8k albums.
My friend does the same and is up to 38k albums. I connect to both of our libraries via Plex.
For everything else I use private trackers and torrent. I've also built out huge movies, tv, anime libraries with my friends.
Good info. Yeah I mostly rip mp3s from YouTube. And if they have an intro or something I just pop them into audacity and trim it off.
But probably easier to get it your way.
And not everyone wants to edit the files. When you rip from YouTube the file info has to be manually updated.
(Assuming you like to organize your music collection, you would want that info put in).
I believe I used Plex with my last smart TV. That's also an option.
I think for me, the biggest downside to pirating is subtitles issues.
I prefer my shows/movies to have subs.
Sometimes it's hard to find subtitles that are synched properly.
I found an open source subtitle editor. And if I have a show I re watch a lot, I'll take the time to fix a bad subtitle. But sometimes it's a lot of work if it's off really bad.
That happens when the subtitle frame rate is different than the video.
Real pain to fix. I had to do it for every season , every episode of Channel Zero. Couldnt find subs anywhere that matches the video.
My gawd.
I need to figure out how to upload the ones I fix so others can get them.