I have tried out iTunes & Napster over the last couple days. Each service lets you pay $0.99 for a song or $10 for an entire album. Once you have paid, you download your tracks. You can then burn the songs to a CD if you like. Considering how much flack the RIAA has given to those who download illegaly, this isn’t such a bad system. Besides, when is the last time you bought a CD where you liked every song on it? Most of the time, I concentrate on two, maybe three tracks. Instead of paying $3 for a single at Wal-Mart, now I can download the sucker at my lesuire for about a buck.

I like Napster better because you don’t have to put in your credit card info until you actually make a purchase. iTunes requires you to give credit card information up front before you can even get an account through them. I felt that this was too invasive. The interface for Napster is pretty quick and its easy to find groups, albums, or individual tracks. And the speed and quality of purchased tracks really is better than the illegal downloads we all know and love.