Music Downloads By Garen Mirzoian

Paid Providers Rhapsody Napster ITunes

Free Providers Direct Connect Kazaa

Rhapsody $9.95 Per month for All Access, or $4.95 for Premium Radio All access Allows for Radio as well as CD burning capabilities Lets Individuals burn CDs for $.79 per song Premium Radio Allows access to more than 80 commercial free Internet Radio Stations (permits user to skip past unwanted songs)

Advantages 900,000+ Track Count (2002 figures), more than 50,000 albums Rhapsody inked deals with all five major record labels and more than 100 Indies Offers music from more than 500 Independent Labels Allows user to create and share his/her Playlist User friendly, provides background information on each singer, and gives reviews regarding singers latest album Rhapsody Customer File can be accessed from anywhere Must Install Rhapsody Software on your Personal Computer You can navigate and stream Rhapsody's full content catalog over a wireless network connection to your home stereo. Contents are secure and virus free

Disadvantages Does not allow tracks to be downloaded onto a hard drive Music can not be stored on an MP3 Player The only way to transfer Rhapsody tracks onto your hard drive or MP3 player is by extracting the tracks from the CD with an audio ripper, such as Musicmatch Jukebox When you buy tracks, they're recorded directly to a CD by a burning app that's built into the Rhapsody software. The CDs are recorded as audio discs, and files are inconveniently named Track 1, Track 2, and so on.

Direct Connect Free to users, only thing required is the Direct Connect (DC++) software Direct Connect allows you to share files over the internet without restrictions or limits. Client is completely free of advertisements. Firewall and router support is integrated into the software.

Advantages. Free for users, DC++ software needed Contains various types of music, different genres, wide variety of international music and videos Gives the user the option of downloading various types of programs (i.e. computer applications, movies, pictures etc.) Can store information on hard drive and or MP3 player

Disadvantage Illegal (but is used by thousands/millions) DC++ program is pretty hard to get used to, not as user friendly Higher chances of downloading corrupt files, causes damage to your computer