An online music store is an online 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.

In 2000 Sony became the first company to make music from one of the major labels available for sale on the Net. The big record companies were apprehensive to license their catalogs to outside companies and refused the late 90's requests of MP3.com and Emusic (then called Goodnoise) to sell digital song downloads. They eventually decided to start their own services, which they could control directly.

Sony's service turned out to be an ill-conceived affair. Not only was the service difficult for consumers to navigate and use, Sony's expensive pricing of US$3.50 per song track turned off many early adopters of the service. Furthermore, as MP3 Newswire pointed out in its review of the service, users were actually only renting the tracks for that $3.50. After a certain point the files expired and could not be played again without repurchase. The service quickly failed.

Undaunted, the record industry tried again. Universal Music Group and Sony teamed up with a service called Duet, later renamed PressPlay. EMI, AOL/Time Warner and BMG teamed up with MusicNet. Again, both services struggled, hampered by high prices and heavy limitations on how downloaded files could be used once paid for. In the end, consumers chose instead to flock to the free file sharing programs, which were far more convenient to use and free to boot.

Non-label services like Emusic and Listen.com (now Rhapsody.com) sold the music of independent artists to keep in the game, but it wasn't until Apple Computer introduced iTunes in 2003 that sales of digital downloads took off. Now there are newer services that have started in recent years, to continue selling the music of independent artists. Magnatune, Mindawn, and Independent Music Online are 3 such sites that specifically cater to the independent music community.

While the above gives a good representation of the digital online music store, it leaves behind the traditional online music store which while not quite the same business it was during the internet's infancy, it is still a thriving business. While the digital music revolution (especially online) made buying music easier in some cases, there is still a disjoint between digital music providers and traditional music retailers. Traditional music retailers continue to sell tangible products shipped to your door. Everything from records, to cds, to even tapes. There are a number of major and indie stores that cover this genre. I have listed a few below that do a good job of covering all types of tangible music.

http://www.gemm.com - a one stop record store with numerous dealers from all parts of the world. http://www.33third.com - A smaller niche music store carrying mainly new and used vinyl, but CDs and Tapes as well http://www.musicstack.com - An all in one sale site for dealers from all over the world, carrying various music from vinyl, to cds, to tapes.

Much controversy surrounds this issue, so many or perhaps all of these points are disputed.

• 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.
• 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.
• Centralized repository of music makes it easier to find the songs you want.
  • 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.

• Most stores, depending on the file format they use, have very bad audio quality. Generally the .wma format has very poor sound quality when compared to formats like Ogg Vorbis (.ogg) and AAC (.aac, .m4a)
• No hard copy of the songs.
• Decreased selection, because of more attention paid to copyright concerns.
• Increased price.
  • Some file swapping advocates claim that, because file sharing costs nothing, any pay service essentially costs infinitely many times more than file swapping.
• 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.

Along with those mentioned, companies such as Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and Coca-Cola have plans for paid services as well.

See musicgiants.com.

• Pricing: $1.29/song
• Platform(s): Microsoft Windows
• Downloading: Yes
• Burning/Copying:
• Streaming:
• Radio:
• Format(s): Windows Media (proprietary)
• Digital Rights Management: Yes
• Preview: Yes
• Trial:
• Catalog:
• Features: High definition music downloads are the highest quality download available for your home theater. The sound quality of this download is equal to a CD. It is an lossless compressed digital audio file, unlike lossey compressed formats like AAC, WMA and MP3.

See AOL Music Now.

• Pricing: Unlimited tethered at $9.99 per a month, portable enabled at $14.99 per a month.
• Platform(s): Microsoft Windows
• Downloading: Unlimited with subscription
• Burning/Copying: $.99
• Streaming: Unlimited with subscription
• Radio: Unlimited with subscription
• Format(s): Windows Media (proprietary)
• Digital Rights Management: Yes
• Preview: 30 seconds
• Trial: 30 days
• Catalog: 2,000,000+ songs
• Features: Gift cards, playlist sharing, software that automatically downloads your playlists and can synchronize them to a portable device, web based service

See Audible.com.

• Pricing: Varies per title. There are two subscription plans where the user can buy 1 or 2 books per month for approx US$10 per book.
• Platform(s): Mac, Windows for downloads, hundreds of devices from 40 manufacturers can be used to play the files, including the iPod, Windows CE, Palm and Symbian devices.
• Downloading: There are 4 quality levels, and you can listen online. Downloading requires free software that is available from the web site.
• Burning/Copying: Most titles can be burnt to CD once (some leeway is allowed for bad media). Files can be copied to "authorised" devices.
• Streaming: Streaming of purchased titles using Windows Media Player.
• Radio: No streaming radio, but many radio programs can be downloaded individually or on subscription. The twice-weekly XM Satellite Radio program "This is Audible" is available for free download.
• Format(s): 4 quality levels.
• Digital Rights Management: .aa format files are based on MP3 technology, but include copy protection by means of an Audible user name and password. Licenses are available for schools and libraries.
• Preview: Extracts from titles are available in flash format, Approx 10 minutes per sample.
• Trial: 1 month free, includes 2 audio titles
• Catalog: Thousands of titles in all major genres. Audio editions of books, newspapers, magazines, radio programs and original shows. www.audible.com offers approximately 70,000 hours of spoken audio programming from more than 250 different providers.
• Features: Wish List, My Next Listen, author interviews, free download each week. The audio files contain DRM, but play on hundreds of MP3 players, Windows Media players, Real Media and iPod devices.

See iTunes Music Store.

• Pricing: One set price for songs (e.g. 99 cents in the U.S.); most albums cost $9.99 in the US. Prices vary depending on the country where the user is registered.
• Platform(s): Mac OS X (not Mac OS Classic), Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
• Downloading: Yes.
• Burning/Copying: Yes.
• Streaming: Not for purchase, only for previews.
• Radio: Yes (built into iTunes).
• Format: AAC @ 128 kbit/s.
• Digital Rights Management: Up to five computers, unlimited CDs (seven with an unchanged playlist), unlimited iPods (formerly three computers, and ten unchanged playlist burns).
• Preview: 30 seconds.
• Trial: N/A.
• Catalog: More than 2,000,000 files; includes audio books; (originally iTMS contained about 200,000 files).
• Features: Allowance, Podcasts, gift certificates, iMix (user-submitted playlists), Billboard charts, radio charts, advanced search, music videos and movie trailers.
• Global availability: US, Germany, France, UK, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Norway, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Canada, Ireland and Japan addressed credit-card holders only.

See http://www.calabashmusic.com/

• Pricing: 99 cents per song, less if buying 10 songs or more at once
• Platforms: any (the site offers mp3 files, no DRM)
• Downloading: Yes.
• Burning/Copying: Yes.
• Streaming: Not for purchase, only for previews.
• Radio: No.
• Format: MP3 @160-190 kbit/s.
• Digital Rights Management: none
• Preview: 60 seconds.
• Catalog: (don't know)
• Global availability: (don't know)

See Sony Connect.

• Pricing: Single set price for songs (99 cents in the U.S.), albums generally cost $9.99
• Platform(s): Windows 98 SE and later
• Downloading: Yes.
• Burning/Copying: Yes, usually limited to 3 device transfers, 5 ATRAC CD burns, and 7 audio CD burns with the same playlist; however, this varies with the label.
• Streaming: Samples
• Radio: none.
• Format: ATRAC3 @ 132 kb/s.
• Digital Rights Management: OpenMG-based system, up to 5 computers can be authorised, amount of ATRAC/audio cd burns and device transfers depends on song and label.
• Preview: 30 seconds.
• Trial: None, although many 'free music download' promotions use this service. (e.g Aéropostale, Albertson's, and EB Games's promotions)
• Catalog: ~8-900,000 audio files.
• Features: MoodMixes (auto-selected mixes of songs based on genre and mood)
• Global availability: US, UK, Germany, France, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg, and Monaco.

See Rhapsody.

• Pricing: Unlimited tethered at $9.99 per a month, non-tethered at $14.99 per a month.
• Platform(s): Windows 98 and later
• Downloading: $.79
• Burning/Copying: $.79
• Streaming: Unlimited with All Access Plan
• Radio: Unlimited
• Format(s): Windows Media (proprietary)
• Digital Rights Management: Yes
• Preview: 30 seconds
• Trial: 7 days
• Catalog: 97,000+ artists; 136,000+ albums; 1,662,000+ tracks
• Features: 25 Free streams a month

See AllOfMP3.com.

• Pricing: By traffic - 20 US dollar for 1 gigabyte
• Platform(s): any (Microsoft Windows for AllOfMP3.com Explorer utility)
• Downloading: Unlimited
• Burning/Copying: Unlimited
• Streaming: Samples
• Radio: No
• Format(s): MP3, Ogg Vorbis, MPC, Windows Media, MPEG-4, various lossless audio codecs
• Digital Rights Management: None
• Preview: Full-length at 24 kbit/s
• Trial: -
• Catalog: about 200,000 songs
• Features: Guestbook for each artist, lyrics, charts, advanced search
• Warning: This is a Russian site, which apparently complies with Russian law. Customers in the United States (and possibly other countries) may be violating the law of their home country.

See eMusic.

• Pricing: Subscription
• Platform(s): Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Linux
• Downloading: Basic package is $9.99 per month for 40 downloads ($.25 a song) with Plus and Premium packages offering more downloads per month.
• Burning/Copying: Unlimited
• Streaming: No
• Radio: No
• Format(s): MP3
• Digital Rights Management: No, impossible with MP3
• Preview: 30 seconds
• Trial: 25 MP3s
• Catalog: Over 600,000 songs
• Features: eMusic uses the MP3 format for music downloads. This format is playable on virtually all music players.

See Independent Music Online

• Pricing: Bands/Artist set their own price
• Platform(s): Any OS that can play Ogg Vorbis, AAC, MP3, and FLAC music files
• Downloading: Yes
• Streaming: For track previews only.
• Radio: None
• Format:
  • Ogg Vorbis (.ogg) @ 160k
  • AAC (.m4a) @ 160k
  • MP3 (.mp3) @ 160k
  • FLAC (.flac) uncompressed format

• Digital Rights Management: None
• Preview: Up to a full track at reduced quality (32-64k), played through java based (and open source) music player (jlGUI music player).
• Trial: Artists can offer free tracks if they choose
• Catalog: 105+ Artists and 285+ tracks

See Magnatune.

• Pricing: Per-album: $5 minimum, customer's choice
• Platform(s): Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Linux
• Downloading: Yes
• Burning/Copying: Yes
• Streaming: Yes
• Radio: Yes
• Format(s) [1]:
  • 44k/16bit WAV in zip file
  • FLAC in zip file
  • OGG in zip file
  • 128kb MP3 in zip file
  • MP3 VBR in zip file
  • CDs
• Digital Rights Management: No
• Preview: Entire song, 128k MP3
• Trial: N/A
• Catalog: 174 artists, 326 albums, 4176 songs [2]

See Mperia

• Pricing: artist's choice, between $0.25 and $1.50 per song
• Platform(s): Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Linux
• Downloading: Yes
• Burning/Copying: Yes
• Streaming: previews only
• Radio: no
• Format(s): MP3
• Digital Rights Management: No
• Preview:
  • Full song, 48kbps (artist's choice)
  • 30 second preview, full-bitrate (artist's choice)
• Trial: N/A
• Catalog: Over 250,000 songs from over 20,000 artists

See MusicNet.

• Pricing: Subscription
• Platform(s): Microsoft Windows with AOL
• Downloading: Yes, tethered
• Burning/Copying: Premium Plan only
• Streaming: Yes
• Radio: No
• Format(s):
• Digital Rights Management: Yes
• Preview: 30 seconds
• Trial: 30 days with AOL sign-up
• Catalog: 250,000 songs
• Features:

See BuyMusic.

• Pricing: Cost per download: 79 cents-$1.29 per song
• Platform(s): Windows 98 and later
• Downloading: Yes
• Burning/Copying: Yes
• Streaming: No
• Radio: No
• Format(s): Windows Media
• Digital Rights Management: Yes
• Preview: 30 seconds
• Trial: N/A
• Catalog: 304,000 songs
• Features:

See Napster.

• Pricing: Subscription
• Platform(s): Windows 2000, Windows XP
• Downloading: Unlimited tethered at $9.99 per a month, non-tethered at $14.99 per a month.
• Burning/Copying: Extra cost
• Streaming: Unlimited
• Radio: Unlimited
• Format(s): Windows Media
• Digital Rights Management: Yes
• Preview: 30 seconds
• Trial: 7 days
• Catalog: 1,000,000 + songs
• Features:

See Musicmatch Downloads.

• Pricing: Subscription
• Platform(s): Windows 98 and later, Mac OS
• Downloading: No
• Burning/Coping: No
• Streaming: Platinum Plan only
• Radio: Unlimited
• Format(s): Streaming MP3
• Digital Rights Management: No downloads, streaming only
• Preview: N/A
• Trial: 7 days
• Catalog: 10,500 artists
• Features:

See MP3.com.

• Pricing:
• Platform(s):
• Downloading:
• Burning/Coping:
• Streaming:
• Radio:
• Format(s):
• Digital Rights Management:
• Preview:
• Trial:
• Catalog:
• Features:

See Download Music Mart

• Pricing: $0.99ea.
• Platform(s): All
• Downloading: Yes
• Burning/Copying: Yes
• Streaming:
• Radio:
• Format(s): Mp3
• Digital Rights Management: No
• Preview: Yes
• Trial:
• Catalog:
• Features:

See Puretracks.

• Pricing: $0.99ea./song, $varies/album
• Platform(s): Windows 98 SE, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003
• Downloading: Yes
• Burning/Copying: Yes
• Streaming: Yes
• Radio: Yes
• Format(s): WMA
• Digital Rights Management: Yes
• Preview: Yes
• Trial: Yes
• Catalog: 700,000+ tracks
• Features: Puretracks Plus gives you 100 music channels for $4.99/month. 14 Day free trial.
• Browser(s): Initial support was only for Internet Explorer. The website still states to this effect, yet, Mozilla Firefox is compatible.

See Mindawn

• Pricing: $0.99-$1.24 per 10 minutes of music per song. Albums $6.99-$8.99.
• Platform(s): Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Linux
• Downloading: Yes
• Burning/Copying: Yes
• Streaming: No
• Radio: No
• Format(s): Ogg Vorbis, FLAC
• Digital Rights Management: No
• Preview: full song, played up to three times
• Trial: N/A
• Catalog:
• Features: Artist receives 75% of proceeds for music which is exclusively distributed and 55% for non-exclusive music. Music distributed in open file formats.

See SacredAudio.

• Pricing: 25% off retail. Albums $3.99-$11.99
• Platform(s): All
• Downloading: Yes
• Burning/Coping: Yes
• Streaming: No
• Radio: No
• Format(s): MP3
• Digital Rights Management: None
• Preview: All songs
• Trial: All
• Catalog: 100 Albums
• Features: Specializes in sacred/traditional Christian music.

See Audiobubble.

• Pricing: Artist chooses own price
• Platform(s): All
• Downloading: Yes.
• Burning/Copying: Yes.
• Streaming: No.
• Radio: No.
• Format(s): MP3
• Digital Rights Management: None.
• Preview: Full song played twice.
• Trial: N/A.
• Features: Wishlist, Top 10 lists, Full previews
• Global availability: Worldwide

See NeoMusicStore.

• Pricing: Labels and Artists choose own price
• Platform(s): All
• Downloading: Yes.
• Burning/Copying: Yes.
• Streaming: No
• Radio: Unlimited
• Format(s): MP3, AAC, FLAC
• Digital Rights Management: None
• Preview: Full song, 1 minute 30 seconds chunks
• Trial: N/A.
• Global availability: Worldwide.

See Bleep.com.

• On its website, Bleep explicitly claims “after the bandwidth charges and Bleep running costs are subtracted, the artist gets half the album or track price.” [3] Files are purchased through PayPal or with a credit card.
  • Single Track – $1.35 (.99p)
  • Entire Album – $9.99 (£6.99)
  • Double Album – $12.49 (£8.99)
• Platform(s): All
• Downloading: Yes.
• Burning/Copying: Yes.
• Streaming: No.
• Radio: No.
• Format(s): MP3, FLAC
• Digital Rights Management: None.
• Preview: Full song, 30 second chunks.
• Trial: N/A.
• Global availability: Worldwide.

See TradTunes. TradTunes.com

• • Single Track – £0.79
  • Entire Album – £7.99
• Platform(s): All
• Downloading: Yes.
• Burning/Copying: Yes.
• Streaming: No.
• Radio: Yes
• Format(s): MP3, WMA
• Digital Rights Management: None.
• Preview: First 30 seconds.
• Trial: N/A.
• Global availability: Worldwide.
• Catalog: 1000+ Albums
• Features: Specializes in folk, traditional, celtic and roots music.

• BuyMusic
• iTunes Music Store
• Magnatune
• Musicmatch Downloads (aka Dell Music Store)
• Download Music Mart
• Independent Music Online
• Mindawn

• AllOfMP3.com

• AOL Music Now
• EMusic
• MusicNet
• pressplay (which has rights to the name Napster, despite costing money)
• Rhapsody (aka Listen.com)

• EMusic
• Magnatune
• Independent Music Online
• Mindawn

• EMusic
• iTunes Music Store - Mac OS X, not Mac OS Classic
• Magnatune
• Musicmatch Downloads (aka Dell Music Store)
• Independent Music Online (Mac codecs and programs for playing Ogg Vorbis are available for free from the music store's website)
• Mindawn

• AOL Music Now
• BuyMusic - Windows 98 and later
• EMusic
• iTunes Music Store
• Sony Connect
• Magnatune
• Mindawn
• Musicmatch Downloads (aka Dell Music Store) - Windows 98 and later
• MusicNet - with AOL
• Napster - Windows 2000 and Windows XP
• Rhapsody - Windows 98 and later
• Independent Music Online - (Ogg Codecs for Windows Media, RealPlayer, and iTunes player are available for free download from the music store's website)