We Want an Mp3 Download Store in The Philippines Too

To date, we only have Fliptunes Plus that sell music downloads from international artists. But its selection is less than impressive – has gagging DRM too – and prices bordering on extortion. Come on iTunes or Zune Marketplace or anyone — lots of Filipinos are willing to pay for music.

We want the choice of buying some tracks on a record instead of getting its CD. We want the joy of owning B-sides on a single and getting on with our music-preference-evolution. We relish in discovering new music too. We are a music-loving people.

Pinoys are ingenious folk and those who want their iPods, computers and other MP3 players full of legally obtained tunes which enrich their day, do find work-arounds for the sake of doing it right. But these ways are troublesome, to say the least. But that shouldn’t be the case, does it?

We want to support artists we admire.

So scrap border/territory restrictions!

Music is for everyone, for the world!

And please don’t say, “Why buy when you can share?” The point is that we shouldn’t have to. But because majority of Filipino music lovers don’t have a choice, they do resort to it and it’s unfortunately, becoming (or has already become) a norm. But, for what it’s worth, know that most music-sharing sites on the Net are malware havens that infect our computers and devices and it only takes a single click of the mouse to be infected. Hopefully, for some, that bit of info would be enough reason to stay away from them.

This may be a hopeless plea because of the obvious — that piracy has been regarded as OK because (almost) everyone is doing it. But I still hope that we would be given a better choice on the matter. Other than Fliptunes Plus, that is.

A few years ago, when iTunes and Amazon announced that they were going to go global with their music download stores, I was excited. Unfortunately, they didn’t literally mean all countries and they just went with a few selected territories. That was such a tease for us and a painful one at that because the Philippines didn’t make the cut.

Still, here’s to hoping…