Australian music download services compared

By Ella Morton and Alexandra Savvides on 15 June 2009

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.

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Comments (22)

  • Del commented on 03/03/2009 17:09

    I found a very positive of this site: http://www.mp3downloadnet.com/?hop=page140 which offers unlimited downloads and one time only fee to download music, movies, software ...
    On their home page they even have your logos as a positive reviewer. Would you recommend such site and why. Tx

  • the_kav_man commented on 12/11/2008 22:53

    Thanks Ella for the clarification. I'm not sure the subscription thing is for me...
    It'd be interesting to know how many subscribers they get!

  • simosyd commented on 06/11/2008 15:56

    I used iTunes for a while but I just bought a new media player that isn't Apple and no luck transferring tracks, so I am not a fan of iTunes, very restrictive. I then tried the Sanity Loadit service, but all tracks have DRM and was causing errors in playback because of the DRM's, so I gave that away and lost playback of all tracks on my PC once subscription ended.
    This is what I don't understand, I want to pay for music, I don't expect it for free, but with these companies restricting tracks so much it pushes consumers away from buying music. When a download service feels they can provide me with tracks without DRM licences I will come back to legal downloads. Microsofts Zune market place in the US offers DRM free music on a subscription basis which I would love to see here in Oz!! I will give kudos to EMI who have taken this step of DRM free music and I will support buying tracks legally from them :-)

  • Ella Morton commented on 04/11/2008 09:45

    Hi kav_man,

    You can burn songs you have purchased "by the track", but you can't burn songs that you buy under the $29/month subscription model. If you stop paying the subscription fee, the DRM license attached to the song files will expire and songs will no longer play.

    Hope that makes sense!

    Ella

  • the_kav_man commented on 03/11/2008 18:44

    Does anyone know how Sanity's Loadit works with licensing, and the comment above that "If you stop subscribing, you lose access to your music"?

    If you can burn it as an audio CD, and you do, I assume you always have it. While 300 songs per month for $30 seems good, if you need to keep purchasing those same albums/tracks each month it isn't quite so good.

    But, by the sounds of it, if you have to keep paying $29/mth ($348/yr) to keep your music collection, they've got you by the short and curlies.

    Am I reading that correctly?

  • techdribble commented on 24/10/2008 15:29

    Downloading from the Bigpond store is a pain. It was track by track when I purchased a complete album. They desperately need a proper download client. Musichead has separate client you can use which made the process a lot easier. Itunes is stil the easiest but not a huge range of DRM free stuff.

  • Ella Morton commented on 24/10/2008 13:07

    Tom - LoadIt and MusicStation both offer subscription plans. Check out this article for more info: http://www.cnet.com.au/mp3players/musicsoftware/0,239029154,339292126,00.htm

  • Tom commented on 24/10/2008 12:48

    Lex - so far there aren't any subscription services in Australia, unless you count Nokia's $10 per month unlimited streaming as a subscription service (which is different to the usual download-and-expire services). Judging by the failure of most US-based subscription stores and Apple's apprehension to enter the field I would say the prospects for a download-and-expire subscription service to be slim.

    Alfred - you want to look for Royalty-Free or Creative Common music, otherwise you'll find yourself having to deal with record labels for the rights, which can be lengthy and sometimes difficult. Try Magnatune or OnClassical for starters.

    TheD - I don't think anyone's said that AAC is Apple's format, unless you're saying that their format is M4A and M4P rather than AAC, but in that case you should understand that M4A and M4P are wrappers for the AAC format. The AAC is an open format available to everyone, as is the M4A format - the M4P is a mutation of the M4A to add Apple's proprietary Fairplay DRM technology.

  • dan_rox77 commented on 15/03/2008 19:28

    Albums are $17 on iTunes, while CDs cost $30. Go figure, TheD

  • TheD commented on 25/01/2008 16:19

    AAC is not apples format, get a clue.
    Also online download stores are a rip off, CDs don't cost much more and sound a ton better and don't have drm.

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