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An online music store is an Internet service that sells audio, usually primarily music, on a per-song and/or subscription basis. The realization of the market for these services grew widespread around the time of Napster, a music and file sharing service created by Shawn Fanning that made a major impact on the Internet scene during the year 2000. Some services have tethered downloads, meaning that playing songs requires an active membership.1 Compared to file swapping
Much controversy surrounds this issue, so many or perhaps all of these points are disputed.
1.1 Advantages
- More respectful to copyright law as interpreted by groups like the RIAA.
- Decreases chances of legal disadvantages.
- Avoids some social stigmas and moral regrets that some people have.
- Arguably promotes creation of music.
- More consistent and higher quality meta-data, because the entering of the meta-data is more centralized and done by groups with financial interests.
- Companies sometimes feel more accountable to users than other users.
- Higher audio quality for similar reasons as meta-data.
1.2 Disadvantages
- Decreased selection, because of more attention paid to copyright concerns.
- Increased price.
- Some file swapping advocates claim that music stores charge an infinite number of times more because of division by zero complications.
- Notably Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs claimed in his introduction of the iTunes Music Store that file swappers get paid less than minimum wage for the work required to download audio.
- Digital Rights Management sometimes irritates consumers. The restrictions vary with the service sometimes within songs of a service.
- Doesn't support record labels. Criticisms of record labels include overpricing, monopolies, and lack of support for artists.
2 Stores
Along with those mentioned, companies like Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and Coca-Cola have plans for paid services as well.
2.1 Audible.com
2.2 iTunes Music Store
See iTunes Music Store.
- Pricing: Cost to download: all songs cost 99 cents, most albums cost $9.99
- Platform(s): Mac OS X (not Mac OS Classic ), Windows 2000 and Windows XP
- Downloading: Yes
- Burning/Copying: Yes
- Streaming: No
- Radio: Yes, built into iTunes
- Format(s): AAC/MPEG-4
- Digital Rights Management: Up to 5 computers, unlimited CDs (7 with an unchanged playlist), [recently updated from 3 computers, unlimited CDs (10 with an unchanged playlist)] unlimited iPods
- Preview: 30 seconds
- Trial: N/A
- Catalog: 700,000+ songs; includes audio books
- Features: Allowance, gift certificates
2.3 Rhapsody (aka Listen.com)
See RhapsodyThis article is about the online music service. For other uses of this term, see rhapsody''. Rhapsody (also known as Listen. com is an online subscription-based music service, acquired by RealNetworks in August 2003. Rhapsody originally launched in Decemb.
- Pricing: Subscription
- Platform(s): Windows 98Windows 98 ( codename Memphis is a graphical operating system released on June 25, 1998 by the Microsoft Corporation. The new operating system was essentially an updated version of Windows 95, and like that earlier version, it was a hybrid 16-bit/ 32-bit and later
- Downloading: Extra cost
- Burning/Copying: Extra cost
- Streaming: Unlimited with All Access Plan
- Radio: Unlimited
- Format(s): Windows MediaWindows Media is a framework for media creation and distribution for Microsoft Windows. It consists of a software development kit with several application programming interfaces and a number of prebuilt technologies. The following is part of Windows Media (proprietary)
- Digital Rights Management:
- Preview: 30 seconds
- Trial: 7 days
- Catalog: 20,000 albums; 9,000 artists
- Features:
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