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So today I thought I'd take a look at just what is available from one of the legal music download services on the Net.

It strikes me that most people are fairly honest and, if given the choice between paying a fair price for their music or stealing it, they'll opt for the former.

Of course there are always a few people who will pirate music even when there are other options -- but I doubt these people represent much of a loss to the recording industry since they'd probably never have actually bought the albums they're downloading anyway.

But what can you and I, with our humble dial-up modems and trusty PCs expect to find on the Web by way of legally downloadable popular music?

Readers Say (updated irregularly) From Yesterday... Copy protection... - sensei CDs, DVDs... - john Of course CD's are... - Grant Have Your Say

The first service to catch my eye was the Lycos Rhapsody one.

Wow... "Burn CDs for $0.49 per track" -- at least that's what it says on the front page.

Funny, it says on this page that you have to pay $0.99 per track to burn music to a CD. Huh?

And don't forget -- that's US$0.99 per track -- or NZ$1.75. Let's see, the average CD has around 12-14 tracks so that's $24 per CD. Hey, that's pretty expensive when you consider the time it takes to download, the subscription fee you also have to pay, and the fact that you've got to provide your own media.

However, it's all academic for us Kiwis, since the Rhapsody service is, "due to licensing restrictions", only available to residents of the USA.

Next I thought I'd try the HMV download service that received a bit of hype last year.

Oh dear, after clicking on the button, this is what I got. It seems that my version 6 of IE isn't good enough for HMV -- or could it be because I have ActiveX controls disabled (as everyone should!) for security reasons?

About this time I thought I'd turn the whole matter over to readers.

Based on my own tiny sampling of legal music download services, I'd have to say that the industry is still doing its best to encourage its customers to turn to pirated copies of their wares.

Have you found (and used) a legal music download service that is actually friendly, doesn't require you to put a "hack me" sign on your PC and which lets you burn the downloads to CDR as a regular audio track without DRM?

If not, then I think the record execs might have to start looking at a Toyota Corolla rather than another Porsche when it comes time to get that new car.

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