To quote The Beatles: "You say you want a revolution? Well, you know; We all want to change the world."

And indeed the world has changed. Since last we visited the music -- make that the music/litigation -- world, there has been an explosion of legal -- translation: "for purchase" -- downloading services. Plus the universe of digital music players and accessories for the players also is expanding.

[To go to the main page for Digital Music Revolution coverage, please click here.]

Some of the interest is driven by fear of the music industry's lawyers. But most of it is propelled by the traditional American desire to make a buck.

For this article, I looked at the key services of the moment: Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store; MusicMatch Downloads; Roxio's Napster 2.0. I also briefly checked out Rhapsody, Real Networks' offering. Emphasis here on "at the moment." Microsoft, Sony, and Wal-Mart, to name just three, are rumored to be planning to enter the market.

This will be good if it results in competition that lowers prices to consumers; bad if an overabundance of vendors means nobody makes money and the market collapses. Internet Bust, Part II. Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been outspoken on the point that downloads are not profitable in themselves, but are valuable to the company because they boost sales of Apple's iPod players. Others beg to differ; Wal-Mart, for example, can be expected to use its market clout to force concessions from the music industry to the point where its service would make money. Then again, Wal-Mart also has the clout to get a player made for it.

Curiously, Amazon, which one would have guessed to be a major contender in the contest, has done very little. It has some downloads (mainly freebies from alternative bands and independent labels), but no service. It's only thinking about it. Will this be a case where the online sales pioneer winds up an also ran?

My guess would be that when the dust settles, you are going to see a mix of a couple from Column A (hardware makers) and a couple from Column B (retail giants).

In keeping with the skepticism of their song, The Beatles are notable holdouts in this revolution. The only tracks to be found for the Fab Four are some cuts of "The Beatles & Tony Sheridan." In a "Jeopardy" game, "Tony Sheridan" would be the answer to "What rock performer used The Beatles as a backup band before they became successful?" The handful of songs he recorded with them -- which were done under his recording contract, not theirs -- have been in circulation for some years.

But pretty much everyone else of importance, including The Beatles's '60s contemporaries, The Rolling Stones, have gone digital. In fact, The Stones's decision to make some of their catalog available this year for downloading was seen as a key step toward establishing the creditability of download services. Their original London/Decca albums are unavailable, however, because the record company won't allow it. So The Online Stones begin with their "Sticky Fingers" album, which was released in 1971 after they changed record labels.

At this point in the evolution of the process, that is typical of the download world. Much material -- services claim to have 400,000+ songs available -- but also many gaps. And that's just in rock. Categories such as jazz or classical are even weaker, although to be sure that is a reflection of fact that those genres are of minor interest to the teens and college students viewed as the services' primary market.

Pricing online has standardized at 99 cents per track; $9.99 for an album.  The album price usually represents a modest discount. But annoyingly, you frequently encountering the dreaded "partial album" phenomenon in which only a few tracks are available and there is no full album discount. On the other hand, some music can be purchased only as a full album -- so consistency is not a strong point.

Some of this is clearly the result of recording industry money grubbing. For example, the soundtrack for "The Return of the King," the last installment of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, was made available for download both as an album (at $11.99) and by individual tracks -- except for the title track. In other words, to get the one track that you probably want, you have to buy the whole album. It appears that the recording industry is going to drag its heels on the online digital market every step of the way.

Bear in mind that you can go to Costco, Wal-Mart, and the like and often find the CD for only a couple of bucks, so downloading full albums is not always a bargain.

Music quality of downloads also could be better. The typical download service delivers tracks at a bitrate of 128 kbps, so-called "CD quality," but actually noticeably degraded. (Bitrate is a measure of how much the file is compressed; the lower the bitrate the higher the compression.)

I do my own rips in MP3 using variable bit rate recording with a minimum kbps of 192, which results in files that are much closer to the original CD in quality. VBR takes advantage of the fact that in a typical song there are times when there isn't all that much going on digitally, so it records those sections at a lower bitrate thereby reducing file size. Maximum quality for MP3 is 320 kpbs, which typically provides 5 or 6-1 compression. VBR will improve that to around 8-1 while maintaining near-CD quality. The sonic quality of songs from paid services ought to be at least that good.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that tracks for download only -- usually an exclusive deal between the artist and one of the services -- is growing as a proportion of download revenues. That makes sense, particularly for "live" concert track where the Internet can get a performance into distribution within hours and also, frankly, where the reduced audio quality of the AAC or WMA file won't be all that noticeable.

Be warned: downloading is addictive. When you get into it, you can quickly empty out your wallet. So, folk, let's not get crazy out there.

Next: Looking at the individual services.

(c) 2004 Al Gordon.

In addition to his computer interests, Al Gordon is a principal in the Boston-area strategic consulting firm, Mary Fifield Associates, www.maryfifieldassociates.com

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You can reach Al Gordon at:

al@tnpcnewsletter.com