Cheaper online tunes

Some digital music fans (including plenty of kids) think $1 a song is highway robbery and say that's why they use the free file-sharing services. Other reasons fans (and industry analysts) of all ages cite include restrictions on what one can do with the songs once they've been purchased. Molly Wood, a senior editor at ZDNET, does a good job of laying out music consumers' current choices (on the legal side of digital music) - from "renting" songs at Napster (when you stop paying, they go away) to buying them at iTunes (but restricted to Apple's player for listening to them). "I'm in a digital music bind, and I don't like it," Molly writes. "I can't imagine why people don't object more strongly to the idea that you can't choose a music player without choosing a compatible music service and vice versa. Maybe it's because the model is similar to ones we're already enslaved by, such as our forced cell phone/carrier marriages. But that's thinking about things all wrong. I wouldn't buy food that can be cooked only in a GE microwave. I wouldn't buy a car that I could drive only while wearing Adidas shoes."

At least cheaper alternatives to iTunes are available. The newest - launched today with 300,000 songs - is MP3tunes.com, ZDNET reports. Created by Michael Robertson, who developed the original MP3.com, it will sell tunes for $.88 and albums for $8.88 and focus on emerging artists, according to SiliconValley.com. Music will be in the MP3 format, "which doesn't have any copy-protection restrictions and can be played on most, if not all, digital music players." Wal-Mart's music service also sells songs for $.88. Even cheaper are some Russian music services, the most well-known of which is AllofMP3.com (with songs for $.10 or less, good sound quality and no restrictions), but some users are getting nervous about their legality. Here's a very helpful article on legal questions about using cheap foreign services at the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, more people are paying for online music. A study found that about 47% of people 12 and older who downloaded music in December paid a fee to do so, up from 22% a year ago, CNET reports.