Anne Harris Digital Downloads

What' s up with the honor system? Won't people just steal the songs?
These days people are very accustomed and plenty willing to pay for downloaded or streamed music, as evidenced by the explosion of legal digital music distribution in the last few years. 8 or 9 years ago, a digital music file was thought of as just a crude approximation of a CD track. People who would never steal a CD swapped digital files. It was kind of like in the old days when a friend handed you a cassette tape of a CD or record. You didn't think "Oh no, I'm stealing music." Only now your friend could rip a CD and email it to you in minutes and you could play it on your computer. Then the Napster thing took off in 1999 and suddenly you had a million friends with every conceivable kind of music. The convenient, free access to a whole universe of portable music outweighed any sound quality issues for music-hungry students. The ethics of it was easily justified: Digital files weren't for sale at the time and a lot of the music wasn't even available to buy on a CD. You couldn't pay for it if you wanted to. But as the music industry caught up with technology, and digital music evolved to take its place as a legitimate end-product, most people have grasped the concept that it's the music you are buying, not the format or the media, and whether it's played on an iPod or a phone or a truck commercial, the artist should be paid. The persistent notion that music downloads and theft are somehow inseparable - that nice people who are accustomed to paying Apple or Verizon for digital music, if given an opportunity, will suddenly turn into thieves -  is, in our opinion, something of a myth.

Anyway, the music here is offered for sale and, obviously, you are supposed to pay for what you take. We are simply not forcing you to. Allowing you to pay, rather than forcing it, lays a foundation of trust for our transaction that really makes it more of a relationship.  As such, we believe that most people will pay for the music, especially when they are receiving it directly from an independent artist. Obsessing over having a theft-proof store could only be motivated by the fear that lots of people will steal. Acting out of fear just increases your fear. We'd rather focus our energy in more positive ways.

The system is nice and simple, too. You just click the buttons for the music you want, make a secure payment thru PayPal, and help yourself to high quality mp3 files that play anywhere. Did you really want to make up another username and password solely for the purpose of buying Anne's music? Didn't think so.
 

Besides, there are some circumstances where we want you to download songs without having to pay. This system makes it fast and easy for you to get what you need. Here are some examples...

  • If you already own the albums on CD, thanks! Please help yourself to the mp3s of those albums.
  • If you already bought copy-protected Anne Harris songs from another service like iTunes, thanks again. You are welcome to download the play-anywhere versions of those songs.
  • If you are entitled to a free song because of a promotion, or if someone bought you music as a gift, no gift codes or promotion codes are needed. Just help yourself to what you are entitled to.
  • If you are an industry person with an interest, please be our guest.

We hope this system works well for you and that you appreciate the ease and simplicity. Above all, we hope you enjoy the music. Please help spread the word by telling your friends and family about Anne. Your support is appreciated more than we can ever fully express.