PlayLouder.com
I've just stumbled across a new source of legal MP3 downloads, http://www.playlouder.com/. It's an interesting looking place worthy of a browse. It only sells MP3's and they are decent quality (192-256kbps VBR) - much the same as eMusic. It's all indie labels as you'd expect but it seems to have the more current/popular bands that eMusic doesn't and it seems to have a better range of those albums, plus more singles.
On the minus side it has a generally worse pricing strategy. They've tried to come up with simple rules to avoid the stupidities that other stores fall into but it's just left them with their own particular quirks. Their rules are that a single track costs 99pence, an album (or single) costs number of tracks x 99pence but with a limit of £7.99. Additionally very short or very long (roughly less than 1 min or greater than 7 minutes) are not downloadable individually, only as part of an album. That seems generally sensible until you discover that the 7.99 limit is per physical CD so a double album can cost upto £15.98 and a triple album (such as the Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs) £23.97. This is rather ridiculous when you can get it from Amazon for £10.99.
Their re-download rules are rather strict as well. You can download your album for upto 30 days but you can only downloads it twice (or possibly only to two machines, it's not clear). Whereas at eMusic you'd music is permanently available for download. Lastly the web site is rather slow which suggests they are underfunded currently.
That said, compared to the traditional download sources it's more expensive per track but competitive per album (multiple CDs aside) and of course it's MP3 so much more valuable in the long run.
Let's hope they survive.
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