Online Music Download Sites, or The Lack Thereof

I know I've said this before, and lots of other people are saying it too, but the music industry really needs to rethink their distribution channels.

I generally don't want to buy an entire album, unless it's a compilation; most groups, I like one or two of their songs but an entire CD is just too much. But I cannot physically buy just the tracks I want.

This is where online sales should come in, but it fails dismally, particularly in South Africa. As far as I know, there aren't any legal international download sites that let you buy if you are in SA (I'm not counting the russian sites - I suspect that they're semi-legal at best; I don't trust them with my credit card details; and I'm pretty sure that they don't pass the money back to the record labels, so why should I give them any money?) And that's leaving aside the whole DRM issue, anyway.

So that leaves local online mp3 download sites, of which I only know one - Musica. They let you stream music for 10c a song, and download for R9.99. But. There are a whole host of restrictions, some of which I can get around, most of which just put me off entirely.

You have to use IE, even just to browse the download site (such as the payment and DRM info!), and you have to use MediaPlayer to play the tracks (whether streamed or downloaded). Tracks are .wma, and cannot be played on iPods. You can only play tracks on 3 PCs (and I don't think that's 3 simultaneously - I think they mean if you buy a new PC, or rebuild your old one). Not really a problem, since I wouldn't be buying in high volume, and could just use something like FreeCorder to capture the soundcard output as mp3, thus getting a DRM-free mp3(and I suspect that this is why DRM downloads seem to be successful - people are buying them, but then un-DRMing them immediately, which presents a false image to the music labels).

But things get worse. The download server isn't local, which means it's slow (they use a UK download service). You must use a credit card to purchase music, although they do say the site is secure (I haven't got that far to check it out myself). Some tracks on the site are region-specific and you may not be able to download them (although they reassure you that you then won't be charged for them - I should hope not!). Some tracks are limited as to the number of times you may play them, or for the number of days you are allowed access to the track for (so much for, "if you download the track it is then yours to keep permanently"!). You need to download and install their "Music Manage" software, to either download or stream tracks! (Again, not from a local server).

You can either buy a pre-paid package, or a subscription. Prepaid packages come in preset amounts - R9.99, R19.99, R49.99, R99.99, R199.99, or R399.99 - so you can't just choose how much money you want to put into your account.

There are a lot of songs that they just don't have, such as "Incomplete" by the BackstreetBoys (so it's not just relatively obscure tracks that are missing).

Credit expires 12 months after you have bought it, never mind that it's your money.

So that simply isn't a viable option, and I will not buy from them. Which means I'm stuck. So if anyone knows of any legal MP3 download sites, accessible from SA, preferably without DRM, where you don't have to install any of their software, please let me know! This is just such a potentially huge market, I'm amazed that there isn't more pressure being put on record labels to allow reasonable online, international sales, but I guess that they have such a stranglehold on the industry that they can do what they like with impunity :-(