Does cleaning your vinyl with a dust cloth still keep you busy? If so, it might have escaped your notice that music, from its distribution to its method of storage and replay, is undergoing a revolution.
Since upstart file-swapping website Napster let the genie of proprietary technology out of the bottle, a once moribund music industry has been quietly coming round to the wonders of downloading digital music. When the transfer of a digital music file from a website to a personal computer is as easy as sending an email, why trek to the high street?
To get started, you'll need a PC, preferably with a CD rewriter so you can copy, or 'burn', files to a blank CD. A broadband connection is also essential to ensure a speedy and secure download. Next, you'll need to download some software (like a customised internet browser) on to your PC, which serves as both the 'shop counter' and the means of storing and organising the songs you buy. This shouldn't take longer than about 10 minutes. There are three main providers in the UK: the legal reincarnation of Napster, Apple's iTunes, and OD2, which provides the songs and infrastructure to companies such as Tesco, mycokemusic.com and hmv. co.uk. In addition, you can buy from outlets like mp3.com and downloadmusicmart.com, which sell music by independent, 'unsigned' artists.
This software is there to encourage you to use only one store, but since availability of certain songs can vary, you may wish to download more than one, so you can shop around. For example, at the time of writing the Stone Roses' eponymous debut album was available as a download on Napster, but not iTunes, and only as a stream (one live listen, or as part of a subscription package for longer, but never to copy) on OD2 sites. As for the Beatles, their music has yet to be licensed for downloads.
Individual songs start at 79p on iTunes up to £1.09 on Napster for non subscribers, or as low as 88p for subscribers paying the monthly £9.95 for unlimited - but not transferable - downloads to your hard drive. Albums on mycokemusic.com start at a very competitive £6.40. Payment is by credit or debit card. Napster will also accept prepaid scratch cards sold at outlets like the Post Office, which work in the same way as those for mobile phones.
What you can do with the music also varies from site to site. For example, when you download a transferable song from Napster you may pay more than with iTunes, but you can transfer it to more than 50 different types of portable player. But while iTunes will happily convert files downloaded from another site to their own proprietary format, these can only be played on an Apple iPod.
Which brings us to the players. While you can burn downloaded songs to CDs for easy listening on your lounge hi-fi (although older stereos may not be able to play burned CDs), a portable player no bigger than a personal stereo means you can take thousands of songs anywhere.
There are two types of player. The hard-disk kinds store lots of songs but are heavier and more expensive. Among these it will be hard not to be seduced by the Apple iPod's svelte styling. Prices start at £200 for 20GB (5,000 songs) or £230 for 40GB (10,000 songs). The 20GB iAudio M3 at about £279 comes with an FM radio which you can record straight to hard disk, while the 20GB Sony HDI, has a 25-hour battery life, more than twice that of the iPod.
The second type of player is smaller, often worn like a necklace or dogtag, but with less memory. The range runs from the Digital Square Zillion starting at £40 for 64MB (only 15 songs but additional memory available) to the Creative Nomad MuVo at £99. The Creative Nomad has a pull-out memory section to plug straight into your computer to download songs, or to a friend's player for sampling.
Ideally, you should check that your player also has remote control on the headphone lead, a convenient built-in rechargeable battery and can record from a stereo.
It may be that you find the idea of storing a lifetime's record collection on a silicon chip rather sterile at first. But with sales booming and numerous charts tracking sales progress, you may find it hard to resist. The truth is that once you experience the freedom of making your own compilations, and the ability to purchase only the tracks you really like from Radiohead's next album, you're sure to be hooked. Go forth and download.
Peer to peer
It made the previous incarnation of Napster illegal and resulted in an £18 million lawsuit: peer to peer provided a centralised database directing users to others who were willing to share the copyrighted songs they wanted.
But peer to peer has no centralised interface, and this is how current generations of file-swapping websites are continuing to exist in the face of increasing litigation. They simply provide the software that connects the user to others using the same application and the opportunity to anonymously share anything on your hard drive, putting the interaction back into the internet in the process, it's said. Fine if you want to share your latest holiday snaps, but not necessarily if you want to share copyrighted material en mass. These are the ones you might want to avoid: Gnutella, iMesh, Grokster, eDonkey, G2 and Limewire.
MP3 and all that jazz
MP3 is the name of a computer file type that uses less memory - typically one tenth of the original file - to store music without compromising the sound quality. But it's become a generic term for other, more recent formats such as WMA and AAC with slightly better sound quality. You should check that your player plays MP3s and can convert these other file formats.
