Comparing Music Download Websites

Personally, I have all the music I could ever want. In fact, I have so much I am thinking of liquidating some in a yard sale!

So, the thought of downloading music for 99 cents or even 10 cents per song doesn't excite me very much. However, you might feel differently. With that in mind, I found an interesting article on the Extreme Tech web site that compares several of the top web musical download web sites.
The first thing you should know is that the heady days of free downloads and file swapping is pretty much over. Yes, there are still file swapping sites out there, but the music industry and their gaggle of lawyers have put the fear of God in all of us (for file swapping , anyway) with their myriad of lawsuits against websites and users. (I still find it ironic that the RIAA is suing the very people who are legitimately buying their music. But I guess if you can afford lawyers and you own several politicians, you can do whatever you want.)

So, if you want music and don't want to be a pirate or pay excessive amounts of money in a music store, you may want to consider joining one of these online music services. In the end, you are still going to pay a lot of money for music, but you will wind up with the music you really want instead of buying a CD with a lot of songs you don't want.

The one thing that fascinated me while reading the article is that almost all of them use some sort of proprietary software or hardware. For instance, the Wal-Mart service requires you to only use Microsoft's Media Player. Apple's i-Tunes service require you to own an Apple i-Pod player, which aren't cheap.

Although I am not about to sign up for any service, I found the article very interesting in comparing what the various sites have to offer. If you are interested in music downloads, you definitely need to read this article.

Go to:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1784304,00.asp