The music industry has been losing a lot of money lately. This is due in part to the ability of people, who would otherwise buy music, to download pretty much anything they want over the internet for free. Today’s high speed connections, file sharing software networks, and the rise of the MP3 compression standard (near CD quality and relatively small file size) have contributed to the boom in, what is, in essence, stealing. The industry’s quandary: the internet is an ideal way to distribute music, but how do they protect the rights and livelihoods of artists and performers?

The first attempts to sell music online have received a somewhat lukewarm reception from potential buyers. Most require a monthly $9.95 subscription fee. Although the subscriber gains unlimited access to the music, it’s either streamed into their computer each time they listen, requiring a constant connection, or the downloaded music is rendered useless if the subscription lapses. If you want to keep any music, to load onto a personal player or burn onto a CD, well, that’s another $.99 a song. And although these services reach the vast majority of computer users, Mac users need not apply.

This week Apple CEO Steve Jobs, well known for his penchants for music and technological innovation, opened the iTunes Music Store. The store is built around two core components – the new AAC music compression standard and iTunes 4.

AAC is the music side of the emerging MPEG-4 standard, and boasts better quality and a smaller file size than MP3.

iTunes 4 is the digital music management application in Apple’s quartet of iLife “digital lifestyle” tools. iTunes 4 adds AAC capabilities, the ability to share streamed music among other Macs on a local network, as well as over the internet. The highlight of the update, though, is the Music Store, which is actually “hosted” within the iTunes application itself. Click a button, and the iTunes song list window becomes a browser-like virtual storefront. You can search the over 200,000 songs by song or artist name, select from a wide variety of genres, or browse through the entire catalog. Several artists offer “exclusive” songs found nowhere else.

How’s it work? First, you create an account with your credit card. Fan of Sheryl Crow? Enter “Sheryl Crow” in the search window, and a list of her available albums appears. Want an entire album? Click one button, and the album is downloaded onto your Mac. Want just one song? It’s just a click away. Although there are some exceptions, each song is $.99. Ten song album = $9.99. Want to hear some of a song before buying? Click a button for a free 30 second preview.

Now, you may be asking, “what’s to keep someone from buying a song and sharing it over the internet on KaZaa?” Basically, each downloaded song carries your digital signature. You can copy the music onto up to three Macs, burn individual songs on unlimited CDs and DVDs, make unlimited transfers to your iPod, and reproduce the same playlist on up to ten CDs. You can also transfer your authorized ownership to a new computer. This Digital Rights Management was central to getting the Big Five music labels to sign on to the concept.

How’s it working so far? According to Billboard.com, in the first 18 hours of operation, an estimated 275,000 tracks at $.99 a piece were sold. Not a bad start, especially considering that the iTunes Music Store is only accessible by Mac users. For now. Apple has announced that it will make the Store (and probably iTunes for Windows) available to Windows users by the end of the year.

© 2003 Peter F. Zimowski