My Thoughts on Online Music Services

Where do you go to purchase or listen to music? Do you listen to it on the radio? Do you purchase CDs? Do you purchase music through services such as iTunes, Puretracks, or Amazon MP3? Are you subscribed to a music subscription service such as Napster, Rhapsody, or eMusic? Do you listen to online radio? Do you listen to satellite radio from XM or Sirius?

I am a big fan of music. I listen to music, I compose my own music, I like to remix music, and I play an instrument. I consume my music simply by buying CDs, by listening to the radio, and by listening to internet radio, particularly from my favorite source of internet radio which is SHOUTcast. I also use Napster, but I'm thinking about abandoning Napster completely for many reasons. I kind of like iTunes, but I don't like the fact that a majority of the songs sold on iTunes are sold with DRM, and I usually prefer buying albums on CD as opposed to buying on iTunes. If the Amazon MP3 Store operated in Canada, I would definitely use it a lot, even though I still prefer music bought on CDs.

The one thing that I don't like about online music stores is the availability of it's content in foreign markets, and the content's availability in DRM free formats in foreign markets. I am not sure why the record labels want to hold up on selling their entire catalogues DRM free in Canada, where I live. Don't they want to spread their products to foreign markets, and make more money? Even though Napster sells DRM free MP3s in the United States, Canadian residents still get the tracks in DRM protected WMA files when they purchase tracks from Napster. Napster offers over 6 million songs to residents in the United States, but only 2.5 million songs to residents in Canada. Rhapsody isn't even available in Canada, and nor is Amazon MP3, even though they plan to begin operating in Canada soon. The fact that more music is available online to U.S. residents, and in more formats to U.S. residents is why I choose to stick to the CD stores when it comes to actually purchasing music.

I recently found a music service on the internet which allows you to download music for free, legally. No joke. This service is an ad-supported service, and the songs that you download through this service can be played only as long as the user is connected to the internet. The songs downloaded with this service cannot be synced to a device. The service is called Qtrax, and it has the support from the big music labels (and some independent labels). I thought that this might be a really good alternative to any plain music subscription service, as long as I don't look forward to syncing tracks to my MP3 player in the same fashion as I would using the Napster To Go service. You can sign up if you live outside the U.S., but don't count on actually downloading tracks if you do live outside the U.S. Even though the distribution deals between this service and some of the big record labels allow songs to be downloaded in some foreign countries, the service seems to still only distribute to U.S. residents. Even those living in the U.S. still feel frustration when using this service. Don't be surprised, it's still in early beta. I hope to see what it is like when it comes out of its beta form, so I will stay tuned to that.

If you want to, try it out yourself. The website says it only has a Windows client (which is based on Songbird), but I tried the service out using Songbird for Windows, and it seems to work just as well as it does when I use it with the client. I haven't yet tried it out with Songbird in Linux or Mac OS X, but if you want to, you could try it out there. Let me know what you think.