Australian music download services compared

By Ella Morton and Alexandra Savvides on 15 June 2009

(Credit: CNET.com)

If you're keen to boost your music collection without stepping away from the glow of your monitor, our quick guide to Australian download services will give you all the info you need.

The digital music landscape has undergone substantial shifts in the past two years. The main trend is the gradual relaxation of digital rights management, or DRM. Song files protected with DRM have an extra bit of data attached to them that restricts where and when they can be played. A year ago, you'd be hard pressed finding DRM-free tracks for legal download, but several big-name retailers now offer songs in unprotected formats.

Last year saw the introduction of subscription and streaming, with mixed results. Australians have previously been limited to per-track or per-album purchasing, but we received a local subscription-based service when the long-promised Microsoft-Sanity venture, LoadIt, finally arrived in August. Five months later, Sanity announced that the service would cease operations at the beginning of 2009. At least they tried.

Nokia's music store, which launched in April 2008, brought streaming into the mix for a monthly fee. September 2008 saw the introduction of MusicStation, a subscription service offered only on Vodafone mobiles. With the influx of these new services came the demise of older ones — Destra-powered stores such as JB Hi-Fi Music, Channel Go and Chaos Music quietly vanished into the digital ether.

In January 2009, Nokia added to its music store a music download model called Comes With Music. Compatible phones are bundled with an activation code that gives users unlimited downloads from the Nokia music store for a year.

Format traps

Digital music is offered in three main formats online: WMA (DRM), MP3 and AAC.

All portable devices are compatible with MP3 files. Tracks in this format don't contain any software that restricts usage, but copying songs and handing them out to friends is still illegal. If you have an iPod, you'll need to purchase music from the iTunes Store or look for songs in MP3 format at other stores. Non-Apple players will generally handle WMA (DRM) files as well as MP3s. Some also play unprotected AAC files, which can be bought from iTunes in the iTunes Plus section.

Regardless of what player you own, it pays to do some spec checking before loading up your digital shopping cart — a browse through the manual will tell you what files you can buy.

Below is a basic run-down of five Australian-based music download services. If you have any rants or raves about these stores or any others, sound off in the comments below.


(Credit: CNET.com.au)

Apple iTunes Store

iTunes is the dominant force in downloads, and with good reason — the store is very well organised and allows users to browse by genre, read user reviews and playlists and get recommendations courtesy of the Genius feature.

Format: 128Kbps protected AAC. iTunes Plus tracks are 256Kbps non-protected AAC. Note that you can also update iTunes tracks purchased in the DRM-riddled AAC format to iTunes Plus for a small fee.

Prices: $1.69 per track, albums typically $16.99.

Requirements: iTunes software. Protected AAC files will only work on players in the iPod family.

Usage restrictions: protected AAC tracks can be played on up to five PCs, single songs can be burnt to CD or copied to iPod an unlimited number of times. iTunes Plus tracks are unrestricted.


(Credit: CNET.com.au)

Bandit.fm

Bandit.fm is a new venture from Sony Music providing DRM-free music and video downloads. Like other label-run sites, the selection is limited to more mainstream artists, though it's not like Musichead MP3 (below) which only offers downloads from within the label's own roster — Bandit extends to many of the other majors as well. Prices do fluctuate though depending on the label, so be sure to check before purchasing.

Format: 320Kbps MP3.

Prices: $1.65 per track, albums typically $16.99.

Requirements: any web browser; any media player.

Usage restrictions: none.

(Credit: CNET.com.au)

BigPond Music

In addition to standard WMA (DRM) and MP3 tracks, Telstra's song service provides "dual downloads", meaning you pay $2.99 to get one song in two formats — one for your PC/MP3 player and one for your mobile phone. BigPond customers enjoy cheaper prices and the ability to charge downloads to their internet account.

Format: 192Kbps WMA (DRM) and 320Kbps MP3.

Prices: $0.99-$1.69 per track, albums typically $16.50. BigPond customers get a discount.

Requirements: Windows Media Player for playing WMA (DRM) files.

Usage restrictions: WMA (DRM) tracks can be copied to two portable devices and burnt to CD three times. MP3s are unrestricted.

(Credit: CNET.com.au)

EMI Musichead MP3

Musichead MP3 is provided by label EMI and digital media company 7digital. The catalogue is therefore limited to artists signed to EMI and its subsidiaries, but there are some big names on the bill including, Coldplay, Radiohead, Norah Jones and the Chemical Brothers.

Format: 320Kbps MP3.

Prices: $1.69 per track, albums typically $16.99.

Requirements: any web browser; any media player.

Usage restrictions: none.

(Credit: CNET.com.au)

Nokia Music store

Nokia offers streaming for a monthly fee, as well as selling songs by the track and album. It's also compatible with the company's Comes With Music service. Like iTunes, you'll need to download the dedicated Nokia software to use the service. The lack of support for non-IE browsers is a big minus, though. Read our full review for more details.

Format: 128-192Kbps WMA (DRM).

Prices: $1.70 per track, albums typically $17. The store also offers unlimited streaming of songs to your PC for $10 per month.

Requirements: Windows XP or Vista; Internet Explorer 6 or above; Windows Media Player 11.

Usage restrictions: depends on the music label. To check, click "Rights & Information" next to the track. Most songs can be transferred to a portable device an unlimited amount of times, and burned to CD 10 times. Streaming music cannot be recorded or transferred.

Topics: music, downloads, download, aac, bigpond, itunes, mp3, ipod, nokia, drm, emi, musichead, musicstation, subscription, loadit

Related Articles

Comments (22)

  • D1V1D3 commented on 22/07/2009 14:43 Report abuse

    Neither iTunes or bandit.fm finds the new Taproot album... a shame as both have been good to me in the past.

  • wisebuddha commented on 20/06/2009 12:22 Report abuse

    Using Spotify as a premium subscriber and it is very good though why pay $16 for a compressed download when you can buy a pristine CD from @cdwowau who have regular sales and discounts for less??

  • Unlucky commented on 19/06/2009 09:45 Report abuse

    Limewire is great...until you find you have a trojan and someone has siphoned off your bank details...I know, my fault, should have had decent anti-virus/mal/trojan ware. Anyway, I tried using Bandit.fm and it is pretty well done with the channels. A/V streams are v.good quality and has minimal lag. Once the song library is increased it should be more worthwhile...

  • Unlucky commented on 18/06/2009 19:03 Report abuse

    Limewire is great...until you find you have a trojan and someone has siphoned off your bank details...I know, my fault, should have had decent anti-virus/mal/trojan ware. Anyway, I tried using Bandit.fm and it is pretty well done with the channels. A/V streams are v.good quality and has minimal lag. Once the song library is increased it should be more worthwhile...

  • Wolf commented on 16/06/2009 20:58 Report abuse

    why pay for it when there limewire

  • Alexandra Savvides commented on 16/06/2009 14:48 Report abuse

    Hey Sharkie, pjh and richyvk,

    Beatport is a great site but this article focuses on Australian-based music download services only. Beatport and eMusic are based in the US (though this doesn't stop Australian users from purchasing).

  • sharkie commented on 16/06/2009 14:10 Report abuse

    they forgot to mention beatport

  • richyvk commented on 16/06/2009 08:55 Report abuse

    I second pjh's recommendation of eMusic, although they've recently put the price up (due to signing a deal with Sony), and are (as I understand it) not going to accept new Oz customers after July?

    Still pretty good though, if you want to go away from the mainstream musically.

  • GregoryO commented on 15/06/2009 17:00 Report abuse

    bandit.fm is the best music store in Australia by far - the second it was launched in Australia, I made the switch from the Apple iTunes Music Store and I'll never look back!

    Better-quality downloads than most other music stores (the iTunes Music Store in particular), a fairly sizeable catalog that is growing (significantly) weekly, regular sales during which albums are significantly cheaper than the competition, high-quality album artwork, easy-to-use and great-looking Web site...

    Nope, I'll never go back to anything else.

  • pjh commented on 15/04/2009 17:58 Report abuse

    emusic is available as DRM free subscription service in Australia and is pretty good value, although there is quite a bit of stuff within it that is not available to Australian customers.

Post your own comment

You must read and type the 6 chars within 0..9 and A..F

You must read and type the 6 chars within 0..9 & A..F

Submit

Enter your personal information to the left, or sign in with your Facebook account by clicking the button below.

Connect

The Explain Series

Must read