The era of free downloads is coming to an end, whether college
students with fast T1 connections like it or not.
Intensified efforts to crack down on illegal file-sharing has
made music fans more cautious and many now opt to pay for digital
music.
As a result, digital music is now available legally through
music-download stores and digital jukeboxes.
The two more popular online music services are iTunes and
Rhapsody.
The cost of using iTunes or Rhapsody is low compared to the
staggering costs of facing a lawsuit. In the last year alone, the
Recording Industry Association of America filed hundreds of
lawsuits, which were estimated to have cost thousands of dollars to
settle.
But students who are willing to pay for music are faced with the
question ““ iTunes or Rhapsody?
Originally, Apple released the iTunes music-download store to
promote its Macintosh computers and its digital-music player, the
iPod. The store was so successful, Apple soon opened it to Windows
users as well.
iTunes works in a way that most customers can understand ““
the purchased song is theirs to keep, copy, and give away.
It also allows the customer to burn the song on up to 10 CDs and
store it on three computers.
iTunes’ generous rights with the purchase of each track is
what makes the store better than jukebox subscriptions, said
alumnus Eric Chan, who graduated from UCLA in 2003 and has already
purchased about 50 songs from the iTunes store.
The service boasts an impressive search engine going through
over 400,000 tracks and 5,000 audio books.
“The search is fast and relatively easy to use,”
said Andre Wong, a second-year astrophysics student.
The interested customer can then preview a 30-second clip of the
song before paying 99 cents for it.
“A buck a song is still too expensive, but it’s
still the right idea,” said Corey Wish, a third-year film and
television student.
Wish added that he would be much more inclined to purchase from
iTunes if each song was 50 cents.
But what about the majority of students who aren’t too
enthusiastic about Apple and who want to download music
legally?
The idea of Rhapsody is confusing to many, because it sells
subscriptions to an internet radio instead of songs.
For $9.95 a month, customers can listen to all, some or none of
the almost 590,000 available at their fingertips. Most of those
tracks are available for burning onto a CD for an extra $0.79 per
track.
But like on a radio, the songs customers hear aren’t
theirs and are not available for download. Once the subscription
ends, the music ceases to exist.
With both services offering a huge selection of high-quality
songs, it could be hard to choose what online music service is best
fit for your wallet and your digital music needs.
A little math says that Rhapsody is a much better deal than
iTunes because the subscription fee of $9.95 will allow a customer
to listen to an unlimited number of songs, compared to the 10 songs
he might get to listen to with iTunes.
To top it off, Rhapsody customers will never need to preview
songs and deliberate about buying them because the song is already
available for them to listen to in its entirety.
But perhaps the reason Rhapsody hasn’t overtaken iTunes is
because iTunes’ users are paying 99 cents to actually keep a
file of a song that they can burn onto CDs whenever they want. In
contrast, Rhapsody users have to pay an additional $0.79 to burn a
track onto a CD.
Although there are other music-download stores such as Target,
Napster, and BuyMusic.com with prices ranging from $0.25 to $0.99,
iTunes has over 30 million downloads because consumers enjoy a
software and music store that are easy to use.
Others, like Wong, prefer iTunes because their iPods directly
synchronize with the software.
Wish agrees, “If I had to choose, I would use
iTunes.”
E-mail Chen at echen@media.ucla.edu.