Music services

The iTunes Store is the digital equivalent of a music shop. You buy individual songs or albums and own them thereafter, with some restrictions on their use. But several other services, such as RealNetworks’ Rhapsody, Napster and Yahoo Music Unlimited, take a different approach. They charge a monthly fee that entitles you to stream or download an unlimited number of songs. In effect, you’re renting these songs, typically for $10 or $15 a month. Some music lovers prefer this system, since it makes it easier to experiment with new artists and genres, and cheaper to fill a portable player, even though the songs can’t be used on an iPod.

Now Microsoft has joined the battle against iTunes with Zune Marketplace, its own online music service that offers both subscription plans and iTunes-style individual song purchases. Music from the Zune Marketplace will work only on Microsoft’s new iPod competitor, the Zune player.

There is another notable online music service: eMusic. It’s a sort of hybrid. You get to download and own tracks, as with iTunes, but you’re charged a monthly fee instead of paying by the song. The upside of eMusic is that its music is in the plain, unprotected MP3 format, meaning it will play on any portable music player including the iPod, and on every music-playing software program on Windows and Macintosh computers. The downside: eMusic offers songs only from independent record labels. It has none of the catalogs of the majors and tends to be nichey, not mainstream.

Music players

Companies like Creative, Samsung and iRiver offer many models that match up well in price and features against the various versions of the iPod. At one time their hardware and software designs were much clumsier than Apple’s, but they have improved a lot. They still trail the iPod in overall elegance. But many have features Apple gadgets lack, such as built-in FM radio, microphones, longer battery life and even transmitters for beaming music through car radios.

These non-iPod players have suffered because they use a Microsoft-developed system called “PlaysForSure” that supposedly allows smooth, iPod-like synchronization between players and Windows PCs. Unfortunately, PlaysForSure often behaves more like “PlaysMaybe,” with sync problems being common.

SanDisk, a company best known for its flash-memory chips, has roared into a distant second behind Apple, with a series of handsome flash-based players under the Sansa brand. These devices, roughly comparable to iPod’s Nano and Shuffle models, mostly use the PlaysForSure system. But recently, SanDisk debuted the Sansa Rhapsody, which uses RealNetworks technology and is tied closely to Real’s Rhapsody subscription service.

Certainly, the biggest news for iPod haters is the introduction of Microsoft’s Zune music player, an iPod competitor with plenty of marketing muscle behind it. The Zune holds 30 gigabytes of music, the same as the smallest full-size iPod, and costs the same $250.

But the Zune abandons PlaysForSure in favor of an Apple-style, tightly controlled, integrated approach. It works exclusively with Zune software, and the only encrypted songs it will play are those bought at Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace.

As for design, the Zune is bigger and somewhat clunkier than the iPod. But it has three things the iPod lacks: a bigger screen, an FM radio and built-in wireless capability. The latter can be used to send songs to nearby Zune players, where they can be played three times before expiring.

1. If you have a Windows computer, you must obtain and install all of the following: a reputable antivirus program, a software firewall, a junk-mail filter and an antispyware program. Even if you own a Macintosh (Macs have been unaffected by most of these threats to date), you will still need to turn on your computer’s firewall and employ a junk-mail filter.

2. Upgrade to the latest versions of the leading Windows web browsers, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 and Mozilla’s Firefox 2.0, both of which warn you when a web page you’re visiting appears to be phony. (The new Internet Explorer also has under-the-hood security improvements that close some of the holes plaguing older versions.) You might also consider add-on software, like McAfee’s SiteAdvisor or the new Norton Confidential, which warn about fraudulent sites and, in the case of Norton, also about malicious software on your PC. On a Mac, consider using Firefox 2.0 instead of Apple’s Safari, which, while very good and generally secure, lacks a fake-web-site detector.

3. Never respond to or click a link within any unsolicited email message from a financial institution — even your own — no matter how official it looks. Crooks have become skilled at mimicking logos and typefaces used by banks, brokers and payment services like PayPal. When you click on links within these fake emails, you’ll be taken to web pages that look like the companies’ official sites, even down to the address, but they’ll steal your log-in information. Be especially wary of email from a financial institution that asks for account information or says you must log in at a linked site to address a problem. You can phone the company to see if there really is an issue. Obviously, this caution doesn’t apply to some financial emails, such as confirmations of online stock trades you’ve just executed. But in general, you shouldn’t conduct financial transactions via email or links in email. Instead, go directly to the financial sites you use.

4. Similarly, never act on emails offering stock tips, miracle pills or the chance to earn money by storing millions from overseas in your bank account. Sounds obvious, but in the past these scams might have cost you a little money. Now they may be part of more-damaging identity-theft schemes. Treat such come-ons the way you’d treat a stranger in a bad neighborhood who made such promises.

5. Never, ever download software from a company or web site whose honesty or veracity you’re not sure of. If a site says you’ll need special software to use its features, don’t bite. Even if the software is well known and safe — like RealNetworks’ RealPlayer, Apple’s QuickTime or Adobe Flash — don’t get it from a link provided by a random web page. Instead, visit the Real, Apple or Adobe sites to download it manually.

6. Finally, never use security software offered to you via unsolicited email or a popup window, or that suddenly appears on your PC. Such programs are almost always scams and often install malicious spyware, adware and viruses rather than cleaning them up. In general, stick with leading security brands like Symantec, McAfee, Zone Labs and Webroot. Check the software in the reviews section of PC Magazine or the CNET web site. If it isn’t covered there, it’s probably untrustworthy.

There are three main reasons for the success of iTunes. First, it is tightly tied to the iPod, Apple’s wildly popular portable music player. The only legal downloads of major record label songs that the iPod can play are those sold by iTunes. Second, it is well-designed, works identically on the Macintosh and Windows PCs, and is easy to use. Third, its restrictions on the use of downloads are comparatively liberal: You can copy each purchased song to up to five computers and to an unlimited number of iPods and burned CDs.

For these reasons, nobody else has been able to gain any traction in the legal market by copying Apple’s model, and that includes companies as formidable as Microsoft, Sony and Wal-Mart.

So Apple’s music competitors are trying something else: a whole different model for distributing music legally. Led by the reincarnated (legal) version of Napster, by RealNetwork’s Rhapsody service and by Yahoo’s new music service, these companies are hoping to win by renting music to consumers rather than selling it to them.

In the download model championed by Apple, the music service functions like a physical record store. You choose a track, pay 99 cents, and you own it. As long as you abide by the restrictions, which are designed to thwart mass copying by pirates, the song will play anywhere you want to hear it forever, with no further payments required.

However, those 99-cent downloads can mount up fast. If you tried to fill up even the lowest-capacity full-size iPod-which holds 5,000 songs-with tracks purchased from iTunes, it would cost you nearly $5,000. (Granted, most people start with music they already own when loading a new iPod.)

By contrast, the rental services work on a subscription model. You pay, in most cases, $180 a year, or $15 a month, for the right to download as many songs as you want for use on computers and portable players. And the newest rental contender, Yahoo, has slashed those fees to $60 a year, the equivalent of just $5 a month. That means you could fill up a 5,000-song portable player for just $60 a year.

This rental model has attracted a solid audience, but it is nowhere near as popular as iTunes — not even close. That may be because the rental model is far more complicated and restrictive than iTunes, and has several big downsides.

The biggest problem with renting is that if you stop paying your subscription, even for one month, all the songs you’ve ever downloaded — going back years — will become inert and unplayable. Rental song files are rigged with computer code that requires a monthly digital confirmation the renter is continuing to pay. Without that, the song files die.

An iTunes user could pay $500 to acquire 500 individual songs (buying whole albums is somewhat cheaper) over two years, and those songs are always hers and will always play. By contrast, a Yahoo user might download 500 rental songs over two years for just $120 in subscription fees, but the songs will become unplayable unless she pays hundreds or thousands more in subscription fees over many years, even if the fees rise.

Also, the rules for rental songs are more restrictive than for owned downloads such as Apple offers. At Yahoo, for example, you can store each song on only three computers, versus Apple’s five. And you can install each song on only two portable devices, versus an unlimited number at Apple.

Oh, and you can’t burn rental songs to a CD. To get a nonexpiring, CD-burnable, iTunes-type song from a rental service, you have to pony up 79 cents a track over and above your monthly or annual subscription fee.

Furthermore, rental services are far more complicated than iTunes to operate. At the Apple service, every song is a 99-cent download you can own, but at rental services, there are different kinds of songs. Some can be both rented and purchased (for that extra 79 cents each); others can be either rented or bought outright, but not both. Some songs can only be “streamed” — that is, they can be played directly from the Internet, but not downloaded, even on a rental basis. And some can be rented, but not streamed. You get the picture.

Not only do the rental services feature different kinds of songs, but they feature different kinds of customers, with different privileges depending on how much they pay per month or per year. Some rental plans allow you only to stream songs. Others let you download, but only to store the songs on computers, not portable players. The costliest plans — $15 a month at most services, $5 at Yahoo — allow you to stream, download and store the music on both computers and portable players.

Another huge downside of the rental services is that the songs they rent — and even the ones they sell outright for the extra 79 cents — cannot be played on the world’s best and most popular portable player: Apple’s iPod. That’s because the rental-service songs are encoded in a format owned by Microsoft, Apple’s rival, and Microsoft software is required to play them on a portable player. Apple won’t build the necessary Microsoft compatibility into the iPod.

So rental users are stuck with inferior portable players that don’t sell well and thus don’t attract the huge number of accessories available for the iPod. Apple estimates the iPod has about a 75 percent share of the total U.S. portable player market, with the next-highest brand at just 5 percent. There are over 500 accessories sold for the iPod, such as customized car mounts and leather cases, and just a few for other players.

Given all that, why would anyone use a rental service? Well, the rental model is better for people interested in sampling a wide range of music without a large out-of-pocket expense. That might make it attractive to curious but cash-poor students, for example. The rental services also have many more “community” features than iTunes does, features that allow friends and families to share music recommendations, see what others are listening to and discuss music. So they may be better for people who view music as a social activity.

But for most people, it’s no contest: Right now iTunes and the iPod are the better choice in digital music.