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Comment by whichdan | Hacker News Reader

As far as I know, both iTunes and Amazon files are DRM-free, which would inherently imply that they aren't tied to a machine.

iTunes: m4a, has your name and email address encoded

Amazon: mp3, has Amazon's unique song id in the ID3 comments

And in terms of the cloud:

iTunes: $25/yr for iTunes Match, which is completely optional

Amazon: Free storage for songs you purchase from Amazon + 5gb extra

The important issue is to keep your music backed up, since both Amazon and iTunes offer limited options if your harddrive fails.

Anyway, to address your point, Dropbox or a manual file transfer would be your best bet for multi-device support.

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It's true for music, which is now DRM free, but not so for E-books and digital video. Those are all DRM'd. (for both Amazon, Apple, and I'm going to guess for the Google Play store as well.

It's what's keeping me from joining the ebook revolution. I'd love to be able to impulse buy a book and have it 'delivered' instantly, but instead I'm stuck buying the physical version and waiting for it to be delivered.

I was in the same boat until last fall, when I finally caved and bought a Kindle. I hate DRM too, but at least Kindle's DRM is easy to crack, so you have a way out of Amazon's walled cesspool if you need it. (I haven't needed it so far, since the Kindle is my favorite mobile reading device and Kindle Cloud Reader works in Linux. But if Kindle's DRM were stronger, I never would have bought one.)

Not all kindle books have drm. I bought one recently that explicitly specified it had none. Just as with iTunes, people should stop repeating what was once true, and focus more on what is true.

> Not all kindle books have drm. I bought one recently that explicitly specified it had none.

How common is this though? I've half-heartedly done a bit of research from time to time about Kindle DRM, but always give up after (perhaps incorrectly) confirming that it is still mostly the default, and after finding pages and pages of results of blog posts bemoaning or defending some DRM related news from last year, or two years ago, or four years ago. It's why I, like many others in this thread, still buy print even though I'd consider a Kindle for convenience.

So if Kindle books without DRM are common, or even the majority, I'd genuinely like to know.

> Just as with iTunes, people should stop repeating what was once true, and focus more on what is true.

I'm probably guilty of repeating anti-DRM complaints regarding the Kindle, but you have to admit that with iTunes and Amazon music, it's clear cut and there's no question when it comes to DRM.

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/04/torforge-e-book-titles-to-g...

The magic phrase "At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied." is usually added to the product description.

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