After Napster was sued by the ever so poor Metallica there was a gaping hole in the Online Music Store community. iTunes was out but was new and not too much more than a music library that worked well with the iPod. Soon after Mac got its act together and pushed for the online store that sells a song for $.99 each. Which is reasonable to point.

Then the Zune came along. I was looking into one instead of the iPod until I found out that it was made by Microsoft. Then I knew it’d work for a month, need an update and burst into tiny flames.

Now to compete with iTunes as well, Microsoft has release Zune Pass. It’s setup a bit different. Rather than buying each song one pays monthly to download any number of songs. However, these songs are lost once the subscription is no longer paid for and they can’t be burned to CD’s. But one can “keep” 10 songs a month that will never leave their library for $14.99/mo.

Since then Napster has been trying to build itself back up. Now they’ve released a similar plan, only better? Instead of $15/mo for 10 songs it’s $5.00/mo for 5 songs you get to keep.

iTunes Pros

• No Monthly Fee.
• You get to keep all of your songs.
• $9.99 for a full album
• Download them from any computer or device if you sign into your account.

iTunes Cons

• You only get to listen to what you directly paid for.

Zune Pros

• Unlimited Downloads.
• You can select the file format.
• 10 Songs a Month you can keep forever.
• Download them from any computer or device if you sign into your account.

Zune Cons

• It’s Microsoft.
• $15.00 is an average CD price for possibly for less songs.
• Not all songs can be listened to based on a subscription.
• It is not obvious which songs have subscriptions licensees or have to be bought.
• If you stop the subscription you loose everything but the 10 songs a month you “bought”.

Napster Pros

• Tansfer unlimited songs.
• Cheaper per song than with Zune Pass.

Napster Cons

• 1 Cent more a Song than iTunes.
• Less Songs a month to “keep” compared to Zune.
• You have to sign up for Napster Pass to put them on your iPod, Zune, etc.
• If you stop your subscription you loose the songs you downloaded – unless bought.