Off Topic: AmazonMP3 Store Beware!

Prior to the iTunes Music store announcement at Macworld 09, with regards to DRM free 256k iTunes plus availability for all music on iTunes, I had been using the AmazonMP3 store. The external drive that held my iTunes library crashed 2 weeks ago, I had a backup, but it was ~30 days old, thus I had a gap of about 30 days of missing purchases from Amazon. I had heard that Apple will replace your files in case of a disaster, so I thought, surely Amazon will have the same policy, but as I dug around the music store I found out that they don't!

From the AmazonMP3 store FAQ:

• Your Amazon MP3 Music purchases can only be downloaded once. After you have successfully downloaded the file to your computer at the time of purchase, we recommend that you create a backup copy.
  We are currently unable to replace any purchased files that you delete or lose due to a system or disk error. If you encounter a problem with an MP3 file immediately after purchase, please click the Customer Service button in the Contact Us box in the right-hand column of this page so we can determine how to help you.

I was not aware of this policy and just assumed that they had a record of your purchase and would allow a second download. In the end, I did not lose any purchased music, as I used Senuti to pull the songs off my iPod back into my iTunes library, but this finding along with the iTunes Plus aanouncement, I will be returning to the iTunes Music store as a customer.

Buyer Beware!