eMusic eSucks

Having not learned my lesson from the great Pop Tart debacle of 2006, I decided to sign up for the eMusic "25 Free Downloads" offer.  There's an Amy Winehouse album that I've been waiting 18 months for on Lala, so I figured it's worth a shot.

Here are the parts of the dreadful experience that I can remember:

1. Click to sign up for 25 free downloads

2. Fill out a form with all of my personal information

3. Give them my credit card number, codes, etc.

4. Download the eMusic Download Manager.  I eventually came to discover that this is a 4 MB program that apparently contains nothing more than a single link to open emusic.com in a browser.  Two things you cannot do in this tool are Download or Manage.

5. Browse for music on eMusic website.  "Amy Winehouse".  

"We’re sorry but in order to keep eMusic download prices at less than half of iTunes and Amazon we currently do not have albums by Amy Winehouse.  However if you like Amy Winehouse, we think you'll be interested in Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings or James Brown:"

6. Ok, browse for something they actually have.  Allison Crowe, fine.

7. Download album

8. The program downloads a 12 KB file called 11006804.emp with no instructions, anywhere.  I am not making this up.  WTF?  

9. Go to website to research what an emp file is, and how to get MP3s.  All of the marketing pages on the eMusic site talk about MP3s.  All of the help pages on the site talk about emp files.  I have no idea how to get MP3s for the songs that I have purchased.

10. Finally found a FAQ that said I should associate my emp files in Windows Explorer with the Download Manager application.  I did this.  It does absolutely nothing.  The Download Manager still refuses to do anything besides offer a link to go to emusic.com.

11.  Cancel service to avoid $11.99 monthly charge which will automatically start after 7 days.

12. Uninstall eMusic

13. Delete 2 eMusic icons from Desktop

14. Delete eMusic toolbar that was added to Firefox without my permission

15. Delete eMusic Download Manager from Windows Shortcut bar

16. Go to Besy Buy and purchase Amy Winehouse CD