KEY POINTS:
Last week we got a new music download service - but it wasn't the iTunes store tens of thousands of iPod owners wanted.
Instead, mobile phone operator Vodafone started a revamped download service for 021 users.
Local music download operators Digirama, Amplifier and the
largely forgotten Telecom music store are now competing with the two red giants - Vodafone and Coketunes.
At the Vodafone music store, customers can pay for music using a mobile phone account or pre-pay credit rather than a credit card.
The price isn't bad - at $1.99 a track it's more expensive than Digirama, which charges $1.69, but Vodafone gives a copy for a PC using Windows Media Player, and another for a music-capable mobile phone.
It's certainly more realistic than the $3.50 a track Vodafone and Telecom have been charging.
Full albums are $17.99, so if for anyone who isn't sentimental about owning the music booklet and artwork of favourite bands, downloading is the cheapest legal way to get new albums.
A clever feature is that Vodafone will save copies of downloaded music online in a My Music folder so that if phone memory is wiped or PC software corrupts, the music can be downloaded again for free.
Some good music phones are available, such as the Nokia N91 with 4GB of storage, so you can really stock up on music.
Vodafone can also provide broadcasts of concerts streamed to mobile phones, as it did when hip hopper Chingy played at the St James this month.
The technology works, the dual delivery model lets users listen to music at home and out and about. That's the good news. Now for the bad news.
The selection of music is patchy, despite the Vodafone store having 500,000 songs. A search for even popular artists soon reveals holes in the back catalogue. Vodafone really needs to have at least one million tracks available, as iTunes does.
But the main problem is Vodafone's use of digital rights management (DRM), designed to prevent people making multiple copies of the downloaded music.
It means a customer can have the music on only one computer, although users can burn up to three copies to disc and transfer the music to a music player that plays .wma files - but not the iPod.
As Vodafone explains on its website: "Subsequent downloads of the same song will play only on that PC. If you want to play your music on another PC, you'll need to buy it again and download it to that PC."
DRM's linking to one computer is a real hassle for the increasing number of households with multiple desktop, laptop and media centre computers. Unfortunately, it's a trait common to most music download services.
Despite the flexibility of digital content and the ease with which it can be passed from computer to computer, the most flexible way to buy music is still the good old, unprotected compact disc. Unfortunately, a new release CD will cost a minimum of $25.
Restrictive DRM policies are now the only thing holding back the development of music download services and there's no sign that anything is likely to change soon.
Apple will allow its iPod to access only the popular iTunes music store and getting music from other download services on to an iPod is a fiddly process.
There was a flicker of hope when Microsoft announced the Zune, a music player it put on sale in the US last week to take on the iPod.
But DRM will probably kill the Zune before it gets off the ground.
That's because instead of making the Zune compatible with all the music download stores that comply with Microsoft's own PlaysforSure DRM system, it wants to copy the iPod-iTunes model, creating the Zune Marketplace to sell music that can play only on the Zune.
The Zune's trump card, wireless networking that music to be beamed to other Zune users, is of marginal use because the transferred music expires after three days.
Just about every innovation in the area of digital music comes undone because of the inclusion of DRM.
It's no wonder that protesters are beginning to appear outside Apple stores and frustrated music lovers are organising themselves with websites such as www.stopdrmnow.org and www.digitalfreedom.org. Their collective wrath will be unleashed on the Zune too.
Meanwhile, I can't wholeheartedly recommend the local music stores, but at least they say customers can keep their music if they buy a new computer, something people do on average every two years.
