You don’t have to be a pirate to download music anymore. If you’ve been walking the Dark Side and want to go legit, we've reviewed the best online services available today - they'll change the way you listen to music.
After more than eight years of panic, uncertainty and legal action, we’re finally seeing the shape of a new digital music industry take form amid the chaos. Since Napster let the world abandon physical media in 1999 and transfer music via the Internet for free, artists labels, and broadcasters have been scrambling to recover from the destabilisation it has caused. In that time, the world’s music consumption habits have changed.
It’s easy to think that these changes are only about piracy and the royalties and revenues lost as a result. In reality they are much broader – digital music has also changed the way we listen to and discover new music. Music is moving away from the stereo and towards the PC and portable player – it is changing where we listen. We are hearing less new music from radio and television and more from a widening network of friends and websites – it is changing how we form our tastes.
Until 2006 in Australia, these new musical habits were largely illegal. Before then, it was not within the law to copy content from one medium to another for personal use, making it illegal to listen to purchased music on an iPod. Recent changes in legislation and business direction have made these ways of listening legitimate, and a growing number of services are rising to take advantage of it.
If you’re a long-term digital music user, you might be happy to purchase music but don’t want to change the way you listen to it. You might also be a long-time CD-buyer who is eager to go digital. Either way, you need to know where to buy the music you want, and also where to find new music. Here are some examples of the many services available in 2007, and some helpful criteria by which to judge them.
Online Music Stores
Growth in sales of digital music is increasing rapidly. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), while only around ten percent of total music sales in 2006 were digital, this value had doubled since 2005 to a value of US$2 billion.
It’s no surprise that along with this growth in sales has come a growth in the number of online music retailers. By the end of 2006 there were nearly 500 online music retailers worldwide. We can only show you a few, so feel free to shop around, using the criteria below as a guide. There is nothing to stop you from using multiple stores, but be careful – using multiple standards of encoding and protection could mean that you need more than one portable player or software player to enjoy your music collection.
Next: iTunes in Australia
Feature Index:
1. Going Legit
2. iTunes in Oz
3. NineMSN Music
4. Internet Radio
5. Yahoo!7 LAUNCHcast
6. Last FM
7. Journeys of discovery
8. Conclusion