need advice on buying music online

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If music was sold on flash drives I'd be happier than buying CDs, which I find too fragile a medium. I have a wall full of optical media.
These days I rip music to my phone and support the band by buying tickets.
Kind of the opposite to last century.

I've also found ripping Spotify streams sometimes less problematic than YouTube

^
Apparently what you're doing is perfectly legal, as long as it's only for your own use. Though the software distributors could conceivably be prosecuted if they appeared to be inciting copyright infringement.

So for the individual at least, we're back to the morality of the thing, which gets complicated to evaluate even in the case of struggling artists, as I hinted before. I still have some sympathy with them, but it's qualified sympathy.

I mean, it is literally a crime, that's why they make it difficult to download videos. It's akin to taping a song off the radio. You probably won't get in trouble, but it's not legal.
Much easier to just download the MP3s (or FLACs), and often higher quality.

And it is absolutely NOT public domain. If it were public domain, that would mean you would legally be allowed to create your own recording/remix of a song and share or sell it.

I was surprised when I looked into it, but:

"Q2: Is It Legal to Rip Songs from Spotify?
A: Yes, it is legal only if the ripped audio content is for your own use. You can't use them for commercial."
https://www.audfree.com/spotify-music/r ... otify.html

"In the abstract, ripping software is not illegal, says American intellectual property lawyer Thomas D Sydnor II – it's covered by the US legal concept of "fair use"."
https://www.theguardian.com/media/media ... -apps-mp3s

I also remember something in the UK that said ripping music CDs for non-commercial use had eventually been deemed legal, while ripping movies is still taboo.

But who knows what will happen next? I wouldn't have believed Robert Johnson's songs could be under copyright (for commercial use of course), as they're obviously way too old, but apparently some clever lawyer convinced the courts that some of his songs weren't published until a long time after RJ died, and it's the publication date that matters. So now one of his (grand?)sons is getting royalties. He didn't look poor enough to need them when I saw a picture of him and his very nice house, but I shouldn't judge.

I've typically used Amazon and when it's something too underground I might either go to BandCamp or a specific online genre record store (juno.co.uk etc.).