Digital Rights Management (DRM), the technology that restricts songs purchased from iTunes and other online music services, is a "damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't" proposition. The fear is that consumers would simply steal music if DRM weren't available, and certainly Apple's ability to sell more than 1 billion DRM-encoded songs speaks to the credibility of these claims. But how many songs might Apple be able to sell if they weren't encoded with DRM? And what if those songs were made available in much higher quality formats than the low-quality 128Kbps AAC format that Apple currently uses?

You can temporarily catch a glimpse of this wonderful alternative reality by checking out AllofMP3.com, a Russian online music service that's gaining in popularity. I say "temporarily" because AllofMP3.com is so clearly illegal that the US government is using it as a blocker for Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). And that's too bad, because as was the case with the original Napster service—which established peer-to-peer (P2P) technology as the ultimate way of distributing content online—AllofMP3.com makes all the established online music services, especially iTunes, look silly by comparison.

Here's why. Apple and the other online music services appear to be about offering consumers digital music content. But you're being fooled by marketing. iTunes, Napster, and URGE are really about big technology corporations establishing their formats as standards so that they can reap financial benefits for years to come. Apple locks you in to its iPod MP3 player by making iTunes-purchased music incompatible with non-Apple devices. Napster, URGE, and most other music services are partnering with Microsoft, which is pushing its own audio and video standards, none of which work with Apple's offerings. And behind them all is the music industry, overcharging everyone for the right to use its content, all while underpaying the artists who actually made the music.

The silly thing about all this is that there's absolutely no reason, except for greed, that these products and services can't interoperate. And there are already formats out there, such as MP3 for audio and MPEG-2 for video, that work with virtually every PC and device on the planet. Instead of adopting the de facto standards that already exist, Microsoft, Apple, and the others are pushing their own agendas and not catering to your needs. In my book, consumers come first, and that's why I've expended so much effort explaining why—if you must purchase music from online music stores—you should do so from the services that offer the highest-quality music and then convert the songs immediately to MP3 format. (See the Connected Home Media article "Acquiring Digital Music" for details.)

So, what does AllofMP3.com have to offer? The site describes itself simply as an online music store with hundreds of thousands of albums, with free music previews that feature the entire song—not just a 30-second sample, as with iTunes. But AllofMP3.com really sets itself apart with its pricing and quality. Unlike other online music services, AllofMP3.com lets you choose which music formats and which encoding rates to use for the songs you purchase. The higher the encoding rate, the higher the price: The service literally charges by the megabyte. AllofMP3.com performs what it calls "live encoding": When you choose a song or album to buy, the interface first presents you with a choice of formats, including MP3, Windows Media Audio (WMA), OGG Vorbis, MPEG-4/AAC, and MusePack MPC. Then, it lets you choose between Low quality (128 Kbps), High quality (192 Kbps), and CD quality (320 Kbps), or go into an advanced mode and literally pick exactly the encoding quality you want in either constant bitrate (CBR) or variable bitrate (VBR) encoding styles. All these formats are completely unprotected by DRM, so you can do whatever you want with them later. For music lovers who understand technology, it's a dream come true.

How much does music cost on AllofMP3.com? To find out, I examined a few Pearl Jam albums that I already happen to own on CD. Encoded in 256Kbps MP3 CBR, the band's first album, Ten, costs $1.98. The band's second album, Vs., recorded at the same quality, costs $1.74. And yes, you read those prices correctly. On other online music services, these albums cost $9.99, are encoded with limiting DRM, and are of much lower quality.

The catch, of course is that AllofMP3.com might not be legal. According to reports, the service is taking advantage of a loophole in Russia's copyright laws to both stay in business and offer music from artists, such as The Beatles, that aren't available on other services. The music industry has been working to shut the site down for two years, but Russian courts have let it remain in business. Here's the catch: Even though Russia might technically find the service to be legal, it's legal only in Russia. As the site itself notes, users will need to be aware of legal concerns in their own countries before using the service. And there's a wider concern about the artists responsible for the music sold on AllofMP3.com. My understanding is that they don't get paid when someone buys music there. That's not cool.

Should you use AllofMP3.com? Not at all. But I do think that consumer awareness about this service should spark outrage over the low quality of the songs we purchase at iTunes, as well as the expense and limitations of the songs we purchase at all online music services. Legitimate services such as iTunes and Napster have done much to bring music into the digital decade. Now it's time to drop the baloney and offer customers what they really want: high-quality music that will work on any PC or device, at any time. AllofMP3.com is exactly the music service I want: Music purchased from that service works on my PC, iPod, and Media Center, and I get to pick the quality of the songs I buy. Doing so shouldn't be a criminal offense. It should just be the way it is.

Article Information

Email this Article Printer-Friendly

Reader Comments
The music industry is not interested in "your needs", only your money. It will never change. Frank -June 7, 2006 This article is part complaint and part telling us what we shouldn't do to get quality music. What can the consumer do to get the suppliers of digital music to step up to the plate and stop fooling around? Is there anything at all that can be done or are we stuck with the way things are? Lara -June 7, 2006 "What can the consumer do to get the suppliers of digital music to step up to the plate and stop fooling around?" Very simple: stop buying music for one week, yes just one week, and all those greedy, shortsight, incompetent, overpaid top managers running the music and movies industries will change their attitude. Why? because we can happily live listening all the music we already have for a very long time, but those dumb companies could not afford a serious drop in sales for one week. Will this ever happen? Absolutely; sooner or later it will, unfortunately I am afraid it will be later than sooner. Fritzly -June 7, 2006 I usually agree with what Paul has to say, but here he is a little off base. He is right in complaining that online music sellers are to blame for interoperability issues. Apple doesn't let other music play on it's hardware and it doesn't let it's downloads play on other company's hardware. Since they have the overwhelming lion's share of the hardware and download market then most of the blame lies with them. This doesn't let the others completely off the hook, but right now Apple is driving the market. The real issue is DRM. I'm sorry, but it is necessary if you really want the online music market to grow. The challenge is to ease the pain of the restrictions. I am not sure what the problem is with restricting the number of devices that you are allowed to play the songs on and/or limiting the number of CDs you make from the download. Otherwise, it is too easy to illegally share the music. If the music industry thinks sharing is easy, then it has a chilling effect on their expansion in the online market. I know from using Napster that the restrictions rarely impact my listening, even though I am only allowed to switch devices once a month. How often to people get new PCs or portable players? John -June 7, 2006 Yes, DRM is the issue and I simply don't believe in it. I have purchased music for over 30 years and to now have music "limited" on what I can play it on is simply not the answer. It only causes me to not buy music at all that has any kind of system like this. Simply put, if there is any DRM, or any thing like it on the songs that would prevent me from putting it on CD's, or any other listening medium that I choose, then I just will not purchase it. That has been my stand for years and will continue to be it. Eric -June 7, 2006 You have to think about the American public. They cannot inconvience themselves for one minute let alone a week. They are also not that smart in knowing how to use technology and how it works ... homw many friends or neighbors that you know that can not figure oout how to program a VCR or have an unsecure wireless network. What needs to be done is for the artists to break away from the music industry and begin a revolution on their own. Need to market their own material on the Internet and forget about the middle man. Easier said than done. But like a said ... begin the revolution. Bill -June 7, 2006 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -June 7, 2006 You make the assertion that the WMA DRM camp won't let thier offerings play on iPods...and that the manufacture's of non-apple players won't let them play Apple's DRM. That's just false. Apple could easily allow WMA to be played on the iPod and no one would stop them. On the other hand Apple will not allow other players to play thier DRM'd tracks. It's Apple who is causing the problems. Realist -June 7, 2006 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -June 8, 2006 good morning omar -June 8, 2006 AllofMP3.com most certainly is perfectly legal to use in any country that is a signatory to the Berne convention on copyright (pretty much everyone). The wording of this article is very misleading to suggest that they are using a 'loophole' in Russian law - this is totally untrue - they are legally licensed by the Russian 'ROMS' copyright organisation and pay fees to license the music that they sell, and this is intentionally legal under Russian law. This arrangement is disliked by the RIAA and similar large pigopolist music organisation because it allows allofmp3 sell music at a reasonable price rather than the inflated rates that they would like to charge - 99 pence per song?? no thanks. The Berne copyright convention basically says that if music is legally licensed in any signatory country to the Berne convention then it is legally licensed for use in any other signatory country to the convention, making music legally purchased under Russian law from allofmp3.com legal to use pretty much anywhere... Music from allofmp3.com is also DRM free and can be downloaded in 'lossless' formats! Tony DR -June 8, 2006 The music industry would sell alot more music if it was priced fairly, and people did not feel like they were supporting the evil empire everytime they buy something. No wonder sales have gone down in the last few years, with all the negative publicity that the RIAA has drummed up. Yes, people are still buying, but I believe they do so somewhat reluctantly - that is certainly true for me. And by the way, I used to buy my music and own it - and I could have copied it of lent it out - the only thing that has changed it the technology, but because the music industry was so short sighted, it created the problem of which it complains. Had the music industry adopted the new technology, and charged a fair price, fewer people would have used free downloads. Most people are more than happy to support their favorite artists and would have avoided the feeling that they were being dishonest. Trust your customers music industry!!!! David -June 8, 2006 I'm sorry, but your comments and description that 128kbits/sec is "low quality", 192kbits/sec is "high quality" and 320kbits/sec is "CD quality" is just utter fantasy. CD quality is 1411.2 kbits/sec (AIFF). 128kbits/sec is 9.07% of the uncompressed CD-quality data, 192kbits/sec is 13.61% and 320kbits/sec is 22.68%. Lossless compression can reduce this significantly, but bitrates are still a lot more than the 320kbits/sec. A quick look at the Apple Lossless bitrates in my iTunes library reveals a range between 550kbits/sec (Brian Eno Ambient 1) and 1124kbits/sec (Killers). I have worked in multimedia, and audio and video compression, for 10 years, and in double-blind test I seriously doubt anyone would ever tell the difference between 128kbits/sec and 192kbits/sec. Depending on type of source material there maybe a slight perceptible difference between 128kbits/sec and 320kbits/sec or Lossless, but I'm not convinced to be honest. There have been a lot of tests, studies and reports on this, and with my own testing over the years 128kbits/sec AAC sounds pretty great to me. A lot of people seem to be suggesting that Apple are the problem. Well, they aren't. Even if Apple "opened up" iTunes and the iPod all they would be "opening them up" to is other proprietary codecs and DRM standards. Microsoft and their products are not "open", far from it. So, on that basis, why should Apple change anything? There have always been competing standards, and there always will be. It is not a new thing. It is just a utopian fantasy that there will be a single, open (in the true sense of the word, not just proprietary and licensed) DRM format. Why should this be so different? Is anyone telling Sony that PS3 games should work on an XBOX360? or Nintendo Wii? Or on a PC? and vice-versa? MP3 isn't "open" (you need to speak to Fraunhofer and Thomson if you want to use it). AAC isn't "open", but then it is not proprietary to Apple either. FairPlay DRM is, obviously. WMA and the DRM is owned, controlled and licensed by Microsoft. You don't have to use portable players to listen to music - you can use your PC, stream them wirelessly (or wired) to a stereo, and burn CDs. You can also import CDs to all Jukebox Players (iTunes, WMP etc.) in pretty much any format you want. Online music stores are not the be all and end all of buying music, and portable players are not the be all and end all of listening to it. Gareth -June 12, 2006 Perhaps this is a little simplistic, and is a not entirely serious response, but MP3 compresses by a factor of approximately 8 to 10 (640 MB CD AUDIO > 70 MB MP3) so isn't the 9.07% quoted figure nearer to 90% when the datastream is expanded back out? Mark -June 12, 2006 I don't really follow that. 128kbits/sec is 9.07% of the original data, so it has been compressed/reduced by 90.93%. Do you mean 1/8th to 1/10th of the original data? That would be 10% to 12.5% of the data. 320kbits/sec is 22.68% (1/5th to 1/4 approx). To say that MP3 (or anything else) "compresses by a factor of 8 to 10" doesn't really follow either, as it depends on the settings and the range of the codec. Gareth -June 12, 2006 All of you are talking like customers. Not like workers. My music is my work. It gets shoplifted day in day out. AllofMP3 has my music and never pays a cent. Torrents just grab it all for free. You can talk all day about bit rates, and you are just discussing the merits of the stolen goods. "I steal bigger TVs than you". The downloaders are just as greedy as all the companies they love to blame. They think that an album for $2 is somehow magically going to support artists. May I ask you how YOU would feel if your income was cut this week. Halved. Or quartered? If a russian worker did YOUR job for less? You would wouldn't like it would you. So just accept that DRM is like not being able to take your packed lunch to a restaraunt, or refill your coffee cup endlessly, or any other situation where, for you to get everything you want, somebody else has to take a loss. Tom -June 12, 2006 I have been buying music in many different forms -- 8-track, casette, CD, enhanced CD, mp3 -- for over 30 years now. It's funny that every casette and CD I own can be played in any casette or CD player without restriction. Digital music may be the "wave of the future" but for approx $1-2 more per CD, I can purchase a physical CD from a legitimate online music discounter (many of which offer free shipping) and burn mp3 files in less than 10 minutes into any format I choose. I do not own an iPod and frankly never will because restrictive-DRMs are ridiculous - hence my fascination with the elusive physical CD. Currently I have burned over 200 CDs that I legitimately own onto a HD. It's easier with a wife and kids to burn CDs of their favorite songs rather that carry 20 different CDs in the glove compartment of my car. Why should I carry an iPod when 1GB memory keys hold 15 CDs at a time in 192mps format and be easily erased and altered? Have I "pirated" music in this life? YES. It's no different with mp3 format today then in was in the 1970s, when I used to connect two Panasonic tape recorders together to bootleg a cassette tape. Have I purchased music from allofmp3.com? YES -- I do not like someone like the RIAA or Apple telling me on what device I can play music that I legitimately payed for. Will restrictive-DRM prevent people from "pirating" music? Heck no. Any technology to hinder illegal distribution of music/video has always eventually been "cracked" by dubious people to make a profit. I will probably continue to purchase physical CDs until this restrictive-DRM from Apple, Napster, Microsoft, etc allows me the same freedoms as I have with the physical CD. Howard -June 12, 2006 Facts: - Without DRM the online music services would die and wouldn't exist in the first place. Way too many people are too greedy to buy if they don't have to, and taking immaterial goods like digital music is not something most people see as stealing. - Artists don't sign record deals unwillingly, thus they get the amount of royalties they choose to. Huge corporations stealing all their money is just propaganda. Anyone think Eminem is too poor? - ROMS does not pay a cent to the artists. Mum -June 13, 2006 "Artists don't sign record deals unwillingly, thus they get the amount of royalties they choose to." Bull. Eminem is one of the few artists out there that make millions. There are many many cases of musicians signing contracts without reading the small print who end up getting screwed. The Record company will give them a $300,00 advance then after buying new equipment, recording the album (at up to $500 an hour for quality studio time), going on tour and having to pay for sound, lighting, catering, busses etc they end up OWING the Record companies money. "Huge corporations stealing all their money is just propaganda." No it's not. Go out and find a book called The Hit Men and you'll see how the big companies work. Only a choes few break through. The rest turn into one hit wonders and fall through the cracks owing every singel penny they make off of roaylaites to the big companies. THink of all the artists out there who you only remember because of ONE song... artists who could be dead fo all you know and tell me the Record Companies are not shady. It's pathetic. As far as DRM goes - it sucks. I don't understand why people support Apple and MS for what they are doing. It's bogus. Imagine the stink that would happen if Sony started releasing CD's the will ONLY play in Sony CD players? It's the same idea, yet because it's the internet, the commin schmo doesn't seem to care. Sad. sticknick -June 13, 2006 Re: "Apple could easily allow WMA to be played on the iPod and no one would stop them. On the other hand Apple will not allow other players to play thier DRM'd tracks. It's Apple who is causing the problems." The only problem I see about Apple's iTMS, is that it is fabulously successful, and that it is generating a lot of envy. If the fact that Apple is not allowing WMA to be played on its platform (iPod/iTunes/iTMS) is causing a problem, then you should really back off 1 or 2 miles to see the world with a different point of view. WMA is still another proprietary format, a lot more than Apple's choice, which is not except for the DRM part (I know, everybody knows...). What would be a better world for us, simple consumers? Everyone on WMA or MusePack?!! Yes it doesn't allow to buy your song with CD quality, but they never forced you to buy an iPod, neither buy a song or two on its online store. And yes it would be fun to choose your encoding rate when you buy. But, for me, 128k ACC is way enough, and I own a lot of classical and contemporary music (which is more sensible to degradation than, say, rock or more noisy style...) . And please, please remember: 128k AAC is a lot like 192k MP3. I would love to see Apple offer OGG Vorbis as a format of choice, but again, I'm not tied to them just because I own an iPod. I still can buy a CD from my local music store (which is important in my eyes) and use it with iTunes and others. Alain -June 13, 2006 very cool nick -June 14, 2006 everyhting is very good nick -June 14, 2006 "they end up OWING the Record companies money" That's because their music didn't make any. If it did, they wouldn't owe to anyone. And they don't need to pay it from their own pocket, anyway, it's recouped from the royalties they get if the music sells, which was their aim in the first place when they signed a record contract. Is that not fair? Should the companies just donate wads of money to anyone whose music they like? Music business is business, see, and a record company is taking a risk the size of the recording, touring and marketing budgets when signing a deal. If you think they're not entitled to get that money back if the artist breaks, then I guess you don't approve of any companies anywhere. They are not charity, anyway. "THink of all the artists out there who you only remember because of ONE song... artists who could be dead fo all you know and tell me the Record Companies are not shady. It's pathetic." How that's the record companies' fault I don't know. If the public didn't like the music after the one hit single I can't see what the record company could have done. It is ultimately the artist who decides what kind of music to make, what kind of a deal to sign etc - and of course you can get screwed if you're stupid, as it happens in life. You can get good legal advice from musician's unions and it's not so expensive, let them read the small print. I get none of your points, but then I haven't read any books. I have been in bands signed to big labels, but I guess we were reading the small print while the one-hit-wonders were vacuuming coke. "As far as DRM goes - it sucks. I don't understand why people support Apple and MS for what they are doing. It's bogus. Imagine the stink that would happen if Sony started releasing CD's the will ONLY play in Sony CD players? It's the same idea, yet because it's the internet, the commin schmo doesn't seem to care." It is the same, and yes, drm sucks, yet there are no alternatives. Without drm there would be no online music services, plain and simple. Mum -June 15, 2006 It seems unlikely to me that AllofMP3.com would really go to the trouble of live-encoding every track they offer at so many different bitrates, and in so many different formats. I'll bet everything is really only one bitrate, lossily "translated" ahead of time into the other main formats (like converting AAC to MP3), whatever format or bitrate the customer selects. Not that that would be such a terrible thing, since the customer is not paying fair market value, and is probably in denial anyway about his own ability to distinguish different bitrates--making this poetic justice for would-be audio snobs who have never carried out blind tests. (My brother and I have done this to each other, with demanding music including Debussy's "Danse profane," high-end speakers and headphones, and the like, and found ourselves just completely, laughably unable to tell original CDs from 128K AAC at a better than random rate. I can still hear the ringtone that's supposedly inaudible to adults, and my brother is in fact an audiophile; none of the music we listened to was of a distortion-masking sort--it was all chamber music, the human voice, and orchestral music. So, I happily encode at 160K and call it a day. I'm pretty sure that not even Paul Thurrott could tell the difference.) Anyway, does anyone who knows the requirements of running such a site think it's plausible (or inherently implausible) that AllofMP3.com really does what it says it is doing on the fly? Huck -June 15, 2006 I totally double Huck's comments - it is in fact not easy to hear the difference between cd-quality and 128kb aac. Then again, I often imagine I'm hearing encoding artifacts on cd's (and sometimes I have to stop the player to hear whether my phone is ringing although it's not). 128k is just fine for more than 99,9% of people, but for some reason 5% of them demand "better quality" without ever actually trying out their ability to distinguish cd-quality from aac 128k. Mum -June 16, 2006 "I have been buying music in many different forms -- 8-track, casette, CD, enhanced CD, mp3 -- for over 30 years now. It's funny that every casette and CD I own can be played in any casette or CD player without restriction." Heh, this is another great point. I highly doubt you can play your cassettes in any cd player without restriction, yet I'm willing to bet you own some records in both cassette and cd formats, maybe some even on vinyl. And all of a sudden it's such a disaster that you cannot play these digital files on every possible audio playing device in the world, even though it's easy as hell to transfer these said files onto cd. Mum -June 16, 2006 awsome rayzer -June 17, 2006 its good sagar -June 19, 2006 lookin good:) sanna -June 22, 2006 this is a great way to get music sanna -June 22, 2006 i think it is a great way to get music sanna -June 22, 2006 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -June 23, 2006 Looks like your captcha don't work... Janne -June 27, 2006 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -June 28, 2006 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -June 28, 2006 It's all good Name (required): -June 29, 2006 kuu jan -June 29, 2006 ok jc -July 19, 2006 duh i have an ipod but need usb 2.0 this sucks bye ... jm -July 24, 2006 yea Katie -August 2, 2006 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -August 7, 2006 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -August 7, 2006 Its nice Manoj -August 10, 2006 ITS GOOD Manoj -August 10, 2006 its the best thing that could happend linda -August 20, 2006 google Rusty -August 22, 2006 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -August 24, 2006 I hope this works rachel -September 20, 2006 i hope this works this time rachel -September 20, 2006 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -September 20, 2006 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -September 20, 2006 I hope this works rachel -September 20, 2006 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -September 20, 2006 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -September 20, 2006 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -September 20, 2006 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -September 20, 2006 i like it josh -October 6, 2006 its kl Me -October 13, 2006 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -November 2, 2006 kool rachel -November 13, 2006 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -November 29, 2006 **** me me **** me i wont to have it!! Name (required): -November 29, 2006 absolutely fun !!!!! and i love it.... dimitrie -December 17, 2006 Your Comments (required): snoopy -December 24, 2006 Here's what I think. I'm on a music course at college right now run by an experienced tutor who has run his own record companies, has toured all over the world and is still well known and respected in the music industry. What I think is that the larger major record labels who don't give 2 monkey's arses about the music but love your money and know how to run the music industry to get the most out of the artists to get the most money out of them are working pretty closely with Apple. I don't own an Ipod and only use Itunes to play music, I never ever browse the Itunes list of music to buy from them to find out what music is there. The reason I don't own an Ipod is purely because of compatibility. They might be full of memory and have the best menus to find the music on it, they might have the best looking cases, they might play more formats than your average mp3 player (I don't know as I don't want like to use Itunes on windows which is what I have) but the fact is, Windows Media Player is far easier to use and it's far easier to play files on it and move music around it than Itunes is. If I get any music, it's either from the shops in CD form or from a free download site, which doesn't always have artist's music on it. I mainly listen to metal music right now, party because I think it involves far more skill to perform it than you'd need to perform the average pop song, artists seem to have far more soul than other 'mainstream' artists like, say, Pink. Artists in metal seem to work far harder and believe in their music more, and I believe they deserve more of our money. Whether they get it or not depends on the artists' naivety when they sign those contracts that bind them to the record company they sign with. How much they get screwed is down to a) how big the label is i.e a smaller independent label who actually cares about the music and chosen genre are far more likely to give artists what they rightly deserve, after all it IS the artists who make the music and without the actual music, the music industry would be lost. b) how much the artist knows about contracts so he/she/they can recognise if they are getting a good deal. Things like royalties, pay, and anything to do with money is sorted with the contract, copyright is another issue. Some contracts are written out so that the label can own the copyright for anything the artist writes, and that means the label can do with material whatecer they please, which means they can put the track for sale on places like Itunes. This isn't always a bad thing, as long as you know which band is under which label. If I was on Itunes and saw 2 bands and I could only pay for one track, and the bands were say, Bullet For My Valentine and Soulfly I would buy something by Soulfly, partly because I like Soulfly more than Bullet, as they use more skill in their music, but also because Bullet's record label is EMI, a major label. Buying material from Bullet would mean giving my money to a record label who is more interested in my money than my interest in music. Soulfly are part of Roadrunner Records, who might be a big label in metal and might be branched out to all parts of metal i.e Death metal, heavy metal, even some soft rock, but they seem to care far more about the music. But as was said up there in the comments, if people want to try and make the world of downloading music better, apart from attempting to do a very difficult thing, they's have to have a lot time, money, resources, support and the balls to do it. Last time I remember, Itunes were selling tracks for 79p. That is still pretty cheap for a single, it's still pretty good when the music is encrypted and can't be shared among others, and until they convince music buyers that they could have it so much better, people will continue to use this service. They'd also need to educate up and coming unsigned artists on how to set themselves up with a decent contract to make sure they they themselves own the copyright to their own music. Anyone who attempts to change the music industry alone is very brave indeed and have a bloody hard task ahead of them. And they have my respect. Will -January 26, 2007 Cool Site Sera -January 30, 2007 it's okay renelle -February 1, 2007 cool site for something srinivas -February 2, 2007 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -February 25, 2007 Your Comments (required): 451 -February 26, 2007 Your Comments (required): josh -February 28, 2007 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -February 28, 2007 its cool but i like to buy music and listen to it so i bought an i pod and need some songs and figured that its cool to find a website like this so i went on the net and picked this web site and thought that its pretty chill Name (required): - March 16 2007 -March 17, 2007 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -March 28, 2007 Your Comments (required): ALEX SOTO -April 21, 2007 good martin -May 2, 2007 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -May 28, 2007 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -May 30, 2007 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -July 9, 2007 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -July 9, 2007 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -July 9, 2007 Your Comments (required): MOHAMED -July 10, 2007 all their doing is talking into a microphone why should they get paid for that, go get a real job if you want a real paycheck Name (required): -July 29, 2007 = o BOBBY -August 11, 2007 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -August 21, 2007 this site is a cool site for downloading music and stuff but u must put search for music or put pics of artists and we pick lol ok bye MAYMONA -August 21, 2007 I need a Malay song! izz -September 18, 2007 Your Comments (required): danwetherall -October 31, 2007 do you have any rory gallagher Name (required): -October 31, 2007 How upgrade psp on the internet Monte -October 31, 2007 How upgrade psp on the internet Monte -October 31, 2007 Allegal equos silly :( Gandalf -November 13, 2007 Allegal equose silly >:( Atriurio Landroso -November 13, 2007 Illegal music downloading is not right Mr. Naboulinatonavakayaniap -November 13, 2007 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -November 17, 2007 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -February 17, 2008 Your Comments (required): jessica -March 20, 2008 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -May 24, 2008 how do you download it????? do you download it? is it completelt free?? Ash -June 16, 2008 not bad not bad!! hena -June 24, 2008 COOL WEBSITE alex -August 12, 2008 umm pretty cool britney -October 13, 2008 send me la PIN@$%*^&(*& mexican miusic than i tell you elperro -February 24, 2009 if its illgeal then why is it out there. Its not our fault if its against the law. THEN DONT PUT IT OUT THERE!! Quinn Bolton -February 25, 2009 Your Comments (required): Name (required): -April 9, 2009 12345 123 -June 7, 2009 awsome AUSTIN -October 4, 2009 sweet jericho -November 7, 2009 READER COMMENTS: We want to hear what you have to say about this article!     Acceptable Use Policy Your Comments (required): Your email is only used if our editors need to contact you. It is not used or stored for any other purpose, nor posted with your comments. Enter the text from the image below Please refresh the page if you have trouble reading this text.