The year 2003 has been marked by the record industry's aggressive effort to take back what it believes to be its own. Beyond the lawsuits against 12-year-old girls and 66-year-old rap-listening grannies, various dot com businesses have decided to see if they can be the ones to make peace between two warring sides. The following reviews take a brief look at the various legal music downloading programs and services that have popped up recently to combat the ever-spreading threat of free file-sharing programs.
The graphic shows a sampling of the availability of five randomly chosen songs. The checks represent that the song is available on the pay site and the numbers represent the number of hits on the free downloading programs.
iTunes Music Store (http://www.apple.com/itunes/store)
Debuting last April, the iTunes Music Store by Apple Computer, Inc. was the first successful attempt at legal digital music downloading. Although only available to Mac users at first, Apple has since released a version available on the Windows operating system, packaged with its free music player, iTunes.
The iTunes Music Store currently offers nearly 400,000 downloadable tracks (including 5,000 audiobooks) at 99 cents a pop (now rather standard among most services) and requires no monthly subscription fee for access. Because of its ingenuity and timeliness, the store has recently been heralded as Time Magazine's Invention of the Year.
Other neat features that show Apple's extra creative efforts include celebrity-chosen playlists, monthly download allowances for kids, and exclusive tracks and videos. Essentially, the iTunes Music Store got it right the first time.
Pros: nearly limitless CD-burning capabilities, no monthly fee
Cons: iPods are the only MP3 players compatible with downloaded tracks
Napster (www.napster.com)
The monster is back, but only in name. After being traded around like a hot potato, the hip cat icon is about the only recognizable feature of the newly released program.
Napster has a very similar pricing scheme to the iTunes store. However, it also offers an optional subscription plan, which allows what they advertise as unlimited streaming and downloading -- however, downloaded tracks have more restrictions on what you can do with them once they're on your computer. Penn Staters are gaining free access to the service's premium plan starting next semester.
Pros: huge library of songs
Cons: only available on Windows OS, subscription service unappealing
MusicMatch (www.musicmatch.com)
The name MusicMatch has been around for years, mostly known as a CD-ripping program as well as a crappy MP3 organizer. Well now, it's all that as well as a crappy legal downloading service.
Currently, MusicMatch's new service offers 100,000 fewer songs than any of the other services reviewed here. Like Napster, it also offers a premium membership service, however, the similarities end there. MusicMatch's premium service is cheaper but not nearly as interesting or worth your time and money. Rather than having limitless, albeit restricted downloads, subscribers merely get access to special streamed radio stations. Similar, although slightly less-featured stations are available for free through both Napster and iTunes.
While commands on the side of the menu screen easily help you flip through features such as burning CDs or transferring tracks to portable devices, the searching capabilities are difficult to navigate. MusicMatch is the poor man's Napster.
Pros: nothing worthwhile
Cons: poorly organized
Rhapsody (www.listen.com)
Rhapsody is a truly unique service all in its own. Although users are required to pay a $9.95 monthly subscription fee, the benefits are certainly enticing. First off, you get unlimited CD-quality streaming of their 400,000+ database of songs. If you wish to download a song, it only costs 79 cents rather than the now-standard 99 cents.
However, the uses of downloaded files are quite restricted, making them incompatible with all portable music devices. Also, CD-burning is rather restrictive.
The user interface is sleek and organized, making it rather easy to track down your tunes. Figuring out how to actually add tracks to a burn list is a bit tricky at first but comes naturally while putzing around.
Pros: no need to download songs if only listening on computer, cheap burns
Cons: subscription fee, limited use for purchased songs
There are, however, alternatives to these emerging online music stores. Dozens of peer-to-peer file-sharing programs are still out there on the net offering users free access to all sorts of electronic media and files. In an effort to lessen use of these programs, the record industry has used scare tactics such as suing individual users of programs like Kazaa, rather than just suing the makers of the program itself. However, many other programs are available that are not under Big Brother's watchful eye. Time is ticking, however, now that Penn State has confirmed that they will begin blocking the use of such programs by next fall.
Kazaa (www.kazaa.com)
Kazaa is still one of the biggest and best in the business. Despite a major drop in usage after the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) sued more than 200 private users, Kazaa still sports the biggest user network and therefore, one of the biggest selection of files.
Easy to use with smart-searching capabilities, Kazaa added to the house that Napster built. On top of music, users can search for multiple types of media, such as movies, although, very often these files will lead to dead-ends (mislabeled files, painfully slow downloads, etc.). One feature that can help curve those dead-ends are links to streams of certain songs in a user's search results. Instead of downloading an MP3, double-clicking will simply open up a little built-in player and start streaming a high-quality version of the song.
Ultimately, however, if music is your passion, then look no further ... unless you're afraid of the RIAA knocking on your door.
Pros: huge database of files, streams of popular songs
Cons: currently under fire by RIAA, annoying pop-up ads, inconsistent download success
LimeWire (www.limewire.com)
LimeWire has been around since the days of Napster but has hidden well under the radar. While sporting a very different user interface than Kazaa, the concepts are all the same. One nice feature is seeing both search results and downloads in the same window a la the original Napster.
Its Web site claims to have faster download averages than Kazaa and in the tests run for this review, this seemed to hold true. However, many factors influence download speed besides one's own connection so it's a truly difficult variable to accurately measure.
In our tests, LimeWire also delivered more consistently than Kazaa, and far more results in general. Why this application never took off is beyond my understanding.
Pros: consistent, fast downloads, convenient user interface
Cons: none significant
Ares Galaxy (www.softgap.com)
Here's a lesser-known app that I stumbled upon recently. It's the little engine that could and pretty user-friendly for those just starting off in the world of filesharing. It's set up is similar to Kazaa and downloads transfer at decent rates.
If you're just looking for Top 40 tracks, Ares is a safe bet but searching for more obscure tracks might run you into some dead ends.
Ares is a small application with no spyware (hidden software that monitors your actions for the benefit of other companies) and no pop-up ads to get in the way.
Pros: good for beginners, small program size, no annoying features
Cons: limited search results, inconsistent download success
