RutunesDigital Music, Computers, Internet…

With iTunes being the market leader in digital music shops and loved by many, it goes without saying that iTunes has its fair amount of critics. With its high price structure, stubborn software functionality and presumptuous product design, people cannot justify paying a high price for music bundled with restrictions.

So many digital music shoppers are turning to other sources, specifically Russian and eastern European based online digital music shops. Countries such as Russian And Ukraine have copyright laws that are not updated to cover digital media, allowing many digital shops a foundation for selling music at ridiculously low prices without any restrictions. It’s a strong consumer demand that Apple chooses ignores as long as it continues to print money and maintain a dominant share of the market.

But it won’t be long till many of these European shops gain more exposure and attract more users. Inevitably it was also get unfavourable legal attention from western countries. If the growth trend continues, three speculative outcomes are likely to happen.
1. Music industry representative organisations will take legal action and eventually a case will follow through in stating the legality of these shops. Even after all the commotion and media hype of allofmp3.com, still no jurisdiction has simply stated whether these music digital shops are legal.
2. These shops continue to operate, while American and other western countries continue to bully credit card companies, e.g. Visa (an American company) into banning transactions on these shops.
3. An unlikely outcome, but most favourable among everyone, Other drm-free music shops gain enough market share to scare Apple into making changes. Apple is will be forced to listen to what the consumer wants and drop their controlling ways, changing their business model to compete with eastern European music shops.

So just how good, or bad are these Eastern-European music shops? Here is a small list of the cheapest digital music shops on the internet.

1. Legalsounds.com
Price per Track: $0.09
Catalogue: n/a
Other Shops of Similar Price: none

2. Iomoio.com
Price per Track: $0.10
Catalogue: 900,000+ songs
Other Shops of Similar Price: none

3. Soundsbox.com
Price per Track: $0.14
Catalogue: n/a
Other Shops of Similar Price: Millisong.com

4. Lavamus.com
Price per Track: $0.15
Catalogue: 2,500,000+ Songs
Other Shops of Similar Price: MusicMP3.ru, MP3VA.com, MP3.ua

5. MP3sale.ru
Price per Track: $0.16
Catalogue: 1,900,000+ songs
Other Shops of Similar Price: none

# iTunes Music Store
Price per Track - $0.99
Catalogue - 8,000,000+ songs

Many people have emailed me asking where the reviews are for music shops such as MP3Sale and MP3Fiesta. As Rutunes is now a blog, all the original hand-written reviews have now been moved to Aom3.org, the community site for digital music shops as well as a resource hot-spot for digital music buying.

So consider this post as a shout-out for the information that aom3 has to offer.

The music shop reviews section in aom3 offers some truely fantastic extensive reviews on music shops, written by members of aom3.The reviews section is very helpful and you can see what ratings members of aom3 have given to various shops.

Highlighted Reviews
MP3Sale review
MP3Fiesta review
Lavamus review
Legalsounds review

[Aom3 Music Shop Reviews]

Aom3 has also put up a detailed comparison table for all music shops, where you can sort shops by price, features, payment options etc.. Very helpful when you want to find a shop with a specific payment option, e.g. paypal.
[Aom3 Comparison Table]

As well as the strong community that powers aom3.org, there is a freebies mailing list, that sends out free gift certificates and information on bonues updates for various shops. Aom3 have already achieved in sending out 500+ free gift certificates for Lavamus.com. Its free to sign up and your email address will not be shared out to any 3rd party orgnisation.
[Aom3 Freebie Mailing List]

So these are just a few gems on what Aom3 has to offer. Feel free to check it out.

[Aom3.org Forums]