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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Tuesday, March 5, 2002

Free tunes won't die

By Greg Wright
Gannett News Service

Ask Kisme Scott if she would pay to download music off the Internet and she'd probably burst out laughing.

"If it's free, then it's for me," said Scott, 28, a Washington, D.C., human resources administrator who regularly trolls the Web for tunes.

Listening to Scott, you'd think the free music party is going to last forever.

But the file-sharing Web sites where she and millions of others go to get the latest hits for nothing are costing the entertainment industry hundreds of millions annually in lost sales. And you don't take this kind of cash — especially not from record producers and their wing-tipped lawyers — without some kind of backlash, which is why many industry watchers believe pay sites will eventually dominate the online music landscape.

Online companies such as America Online and MSN are partnering with recording labels on pay music Web sites such as MusicNet (musicnet.com) and Pressplay (pressplay.com) where they hope to wean millions such as Scott off their free music habit.

So are they worth the money?

Or is the free Web still where the action is?

No doubt about it, there are sound arguments for either side.

If you pay, you get:

  • Quality. Songs at pay sites feature CD-quality music. At free sites, songs are often incomplete or marred with pops and clicks.

  • Convenience. Pay sites provide stable downloads — most of the time. Dropped connections can be a problem at free sites, which connect individual users who want to share their music. If the person sharing the tune shuts down the computer or the receiver loses their connection before the song has fully downloaded, it's all been for naught.

  • Clear conscience. Pay sites offer a guilt-free experience because they ensure the musicians are getting paid for their work.

Then again, there's something about freebies that appeals to everyone, from the wealthy to the wannabes.

Here are several reasons to stay on the free sites:

  • Plenty of free music is still available online. Although the recording industry went to court last fall to close the free file-sharing sites that arose to replace Napster, which started it all, the legal fight could drag on for years. And even if some of the existing file-sharing sites close, others likely will pop up to take their place. "It seems like it's a Hydra," said Bruce Haring, author of "Beyond the Charts: MP3 and the Digital Music Revolution." "You chop off one head and another takes its place."

Free sites such as KaZaa (kazaa.com) and AudioGalaxy (audiogalaxy.com) are reporting record traffic. But if you visit them, be advised it is illegal to download copyrighted music from them. It's hard to tell what has and hasn't been copyrighted on the Web, but the rule of thumb is that if it's new, it's probably copyrighted and you're breaking the law if you download it.

  • Fees on top of fees. When you buy a CD at the mall, you pay once and the music is yours. But at pay sites you pay over and over. For instance, MusicNet charges $9.95 a month for 100 streamed songs and 100 downloads. But at the end of the month, your songs expire. What's more, you can't burn them onto a CD. Having to pay each month to get access to songs, on top of paying for an Internet service provider can add up quickly.

  • Complicated rules. Pay sites often have confusing rules about what subscribers can do with the music once they have downloaded it. MusicNet lets customers download songs, but you can't burn the music onto a CD. Pressplay lets users transfer music from one computer to another, but you only can burn two songs from any one artist each month. Listen.com (listen.com) has a $9.95-a-month service called Rhapsody that lets customers get as much music as they want, but they can only listen to the tunes on their computers. One of the few pay sites critics praise is Emusic (emusic.com), which lets subscribers download as much music as they want and transfer songs to portable players. Such flexibility is key if pay sites want to survive, said John Hedtke, author of "MP3 and the Digital Music Revolution."

"If I am buying music, I would like to have the right to play it again and again," he said. "I would like to be able to use it pretty much as I see fit."

  • Limited availability. Pay sites offer tens of thousands of songs by various artists, but you still have to subscribe to several sites to get the variety of music you want because of partnership agreements. For instance, MusicNet has a deal with the Entertainment, EMI, Warner and Zomba music labels, while Listen.com works with Sony Music Entertainment, BMG Entertainment and EMI. If you subscribe to MusicNet and you want a Michael Jackson tune (only available through Sony), you'd be out of luck because Sony is with Listen.com. This confuses music fans, who tend to follow artists, not labels.

Right now, the world of online music is still wide open.

You can pay for quality and convenience or take your chances and get your tunes for free. Or both.