Music subscriptions are the quickest and cheapest way to fill an MP3 player with music. For about the price of one CD each month, you can get access to thousands of songs. Essentially, you are not purchasing the music. Instead, you rent it and will only have access to the music for as long as you continue to pay rent.
Most of the stores will require you to download special software before being able to access your subscription as well as additional fees if you want to import your subscription on to your preferred player. One major drawback to music subscriptions exist for iPod owners. Music subscriptions are currently not compatible with iPod devices. Luckily, if you have another type of MP3 player most of the sites listed below will work for you. However, you should check check the individual sites guidelines or go to Microsoft's PlaysForSure website before purchasing a music subsription.
There are five major sites that provide music subscriptions: Yahoo! Music Unlimited, Napster to Go, Rhapsody to Go, Urge, and f.y.e. Two other sites, Zune and MusicGremlin, also offer music subscriptions but they only work with players that they sell. For that reason, they are not offered here.
Formerly the name for illegal downloads, Napster has transitioned into a legal downloads music store. Its three million song catalog is second only to iTunes. As a subscriber, you can download an unlimited number of full-length songs to your PC. As a Napster To Go subscriber you can transfer those tracks to your compatible portable player without paying per track.
You must download their player software in order to access songs, which is available as a plug-in for Windows Media player. Once the software is installed, you are then required to sign up and install quite a few add-ons and cookies just to browse. You can access your Napster subscription account on up to three PCs with unlimited burns and portable device transfers. Napster music is downloaded to your computer in Window Media Audio (WMA) format at 128 or 192 Kbps stereo.
For just $9.95 a month, Napster subscribers get unlimited access to all three million songs in Napster's song library. For $5.00 more (or $14.95 a month), subscribers can download Napster also offers over fifty commercial-free, interactive radio stations. Skip forward or back, look through all the songs on the station and download your favorites. You can also create your own radio stations based on music you select from your library.
Members can also buy songs. Purchased songs can be burned to CD or transferred to a compatible MP3 player, and are yours to keep. Members can get a discount on multiple-song purchases with Napster Track Packs.
Yahoo! Music Unlimited (Formerly Musicmatch Jukebox)
Yahoo! Music combined with Musicmatch Jukebox to form Yahoo! Music Jukebox. Although Musicmatch Jukebox was able to interface with iPods, Yahoo! Music Jukebox is not. It is also not compatible with any Macinsoth computers, but state that they hope to change this in the future. They offer a two million song catalog, which is larger than most but well-behind iTunes and Napster.
Subscription tracks are provided to you in Windows Media format (WMA) at near-CD-quality 192 Kbps stereo. They can be enjoyed on Windows Media devices and subscription-compatible portable players. To download music, you must install the Yahoo! Music Jukebox player. Yahoo! offers a free version as well as a "plus" version that offers more features but costs $19.99.
The cost of their subscription service is either $71.99 annually ($5.99 a month) or $8.99 on a month to month basis. If you want to use the service on a compatible mp3 player, the price doubles (somethng they don't tell you until you are ready to subscribe) to $143.88 ($11.99 a month) or $14.99 month to month. A subscription plan allows you to purchase songs to keep for a reduced price of $0.79. It does give you a 14 day free trial, but you cannot download songs to an MP3 player during the trial period.
RealOne Rhapsody is designed and heavily promotes its streaming music. It offers two major services. The first is Rhapsody to Go membership ($14.99/month) which allows you to listen to all the music you like, and to transfer all the music you want to supported MP3 players. For $2.00 less a month, you can get th eRhapsody Unlimited membership which allows you to listen to unlimited music on your computer. It is unclear how large of a song catalog that Rhapsody offers, all it is willing to say is "millions."
My biggest issue with Rhapsody is its claims that "you may use the iPod to play tracks purchased on Rhapsody." Only if you dig deeper into the information provided in the Rhapsody Knowledge Base will you discover that this is incorrect. According to them, they do "not support the transfer of tracks purchased from Rhapsody" to your iPod. Also, all purchased songs are 128kbps WMA files, and therefore not readable by iTunes. What they meant is you can use the Rhapsody software to transfer your own imported MP3 and AAC files to your iPod, not the tracks purchased from Rhapsody. However, the directions to do this are quite complex and should only be attempted by advanced users. Also, Rhapsody software only works with Windows.
Other than that, Rhapsody seems to be comparable to most of the other music stores. One of the few differences is that it allows nonmembers to sample twenty-five tracks each month, a big difference from the thirty seconds sample most other stores offer but far less than what Napster offers.
URGE
URGE is Viacom's answer to music downloads. They have two download programs. The first is the URGE All Access subscription, giving you unlimited music downloads, costs $9.95 per month. The URGE All Access subscription plan entitles you to play or download to your computer as much music as you would like from the URGE music catalog. You can also play or download to your computer full-track versions of URGE's extensive playlists, listen to 130+ URGE radio stations, and save URGE Feeds to URGE's dynamically updating playlists.
However, if you want to download the songs to your MP3 player you need to get the URGE All Access To Go subscription costs $14.95 per month. An URGE All Access To Go subscription plan entitles you to all of these benefits plus the ability to transfer your subscription plan music to a subscription-plan enabled compatible portable music player.
URGE does not work on a Mac. It should work on all Windows PCs with Windows Media Player 11. To download Windows Media Player 11, click here. Music you download or purchase from URGE is in Windows Media Audio (WMA) format and protected by the Windows Digital Rights Management (DRM) software which is not compatible with the iPod. Apple has currently only made the iPod compatible with another format called AAC. If you use URGE to rip CDs, you can save your files as MP3, WAV or WMA (unprotected), all of which will play on an iPod.
