Music Service Types

An Intro to the Types of Digital Music Download Services

So you'd like to join the myriad music-lovers out there enjoying the bounties of the digital revolution, but you're not sure how. Maybe you're a bit overwhelmed by all the options. How do you even know what type of digital music service you'd like to use much less which one?

Fret no more! This article should steer you in all the right directions. After examining these considerations, you should be well on your way to appreciating all that digital music has to offer.

First off, do you care whether or not you own the music in your collection? Do you want to buy songs and/or albums outright and then play them whenever you see fit, whether on your computer, on your portable MP3 player (like an iPod), or on CD?

If so, you may prefer a Pay-To-Play service like Yahoo Music. With a Pay-To-Play service, you only download songs you pay for and you only pay for songs you want. Then you can play them on as many computers or MP3 players as you like or burn as many CDs of the tracks as you like (though some restrictions sometimes apply).

If not, you may be well-served by a Subscription/ Membership service like RealRhapsody or Napster. With these services, you can access, for a fee, a database or a network of databases.

What if you don't know what you like? Are you typically a radio listener who's just grown sick and tired of commercials? Do you need to hear a variety of music before you decide to own it? Or do you care if you never own it?

Some of these subscription services - usually the direct database download services - let you listen to all the music you want from their selection, whenever you want, in any order and with any frequency you want, provided you keep your membership current, though you would still have to pay to download, transfer, and/or burn tracks. When your membership expires, you lose access to that service's catalog of songs except for those tracks you purchased using the pay-to-play option that almost invariably accompanies subscription digital music services.

Many of these services use streaming audio technology so you can listen to any songs you choose without having to download anything. This is especially useful for people with a small hard drive or low computer memory or who simply shirk at the idea of downloading anything off the internet. With streaming audio, music is sent on demand through a compatible digital audio player (like RealPlayer or Windows Media Player) like songs played on a radio station.

In fact, many of the digital music services out there, you will find, have radio stations in all different categories/themes/genres, some even coming with the ability for users to design and create their own streaming radio station. Though you don't get to keep any of the music you listen to (unless you purchase it separately) you get a lot of flexibility to explore the abundance of music available with zero commitment. A phrase you will sometimes hear used to describe this streaming audio, radio station style of receiving digital music is Music on Demand.

Other subscription services let you download tracks for free - that's right, free! - providing, of course, that your membership is current. These are called Peer-to-Peer services (or P2P) and they are the essence of file-sharing. With P2P services, you would still have to download songs in order to listen to them, but since they're free, you can always delete any that you don't like.

Some P2P services have a one-time "lifetime" fee after which you can access their network as much as you want, download as much as you want, ad infinitum, ad nauseum, no cost to you ever! Except...

You see, it is possible to get into trouble using the P2P model unless all you're downloading is uncopyrighted material (or copyrighted material downloaded with the express consent of the copyright owner). Many people, however, continue sharing music files for free using P2P technology anyway, despite knowing the risk, with as of yet no negative repercussions. The Recording Industry Association of America has sued individuals before for downloading copyrighted music (so far only for over 1,000 files), and won! It's possible they could and would do it again.

During your search for digital download options available to you, you will likely come across the term "Bit Torrent". This is a free, "open source" P2P protocol, meaning that you can get all the benefits of P2P file sharing for free! You don't even have to pay for membership to a network. But you can only swap ".torrent" files with other Bit Torrent users. If you're willing to take the chance to use P2P technology for free file-sharing anyway, you might as well look into Bit Torrents. They're only slightly more complicated to use (which for some is the dealbreaker right there).

Of course you will want to make sure that your computer is compatible with the software associated with the digital download service you select. Moreover, depending on how much of an audiophile you are, you may also want to choose carefully what types of music files you download. The most common, certainly are MP3s, mostly because they are compressed files with barely any noticeable reduction in sound quality.

If you're a stickler for perfection in sound quality you will either want to download larger, uncompressed and "lossless" files, like AIFF and WAV files. If, however, preservation of precious space on your hard drive is your priority, you might want to try highly compressed files like WMA or AAC files, which will suffer a slight loss of sound quality, but one that's barely noticeable to the average listener.

Armed with this information, you should have an easier time determining what type of digital download service to use. You are now ready to examine the various services available. We suggest you now move ahead to our article on How to Choose a Music Download Service for a quick introduction to the criteria we use in our Music Download Site Reviews to help you make an informed decision.