“BuyMusic.com, the new legal music download service, is somewhat like a ratty discount store with clueless salespeople: You can occasionally find bargains on things you want, but you wouldn’t hang around just for the ambience,” reports Mike Langberg for Mercury News.

“This is a stark contrast to Apple Computer’s much-touted iTunes Music Store, launched April 28, which is clean, shiny and somewhat more expensive. But iTunes is only available to the 4 percent of home computer users in the United States with one of Apple’s Macintosh computers, while BuyMusic.com works for the other 96 percent of us who run Windows,” Langberg writes.

“What sets iTunes apart from earlier legitimate services is Apple’s very smart decision to sell music by the track or album, with no up-front requirement for a monthly subscription fee. Apple also got the recording industry to ease up on licensing restrictions; iTunes tracks can be burned to CD, for example, as many times as the user wants,” writes Langberg.

“BuyMusic.com, launched July 22, is the first comprehensive pay-per-track Windows service, although it has none of Apple’s elegance and is saddled with tighter licensing rules,” writes Langberg.

Full article here.